Emergence: How Can Art and Synthetic Biology Help Build More Just Futures?

​Featuring Ahmed Best and Dr. Yewande Pearse in a conversation moderated by Jason E.C. Wright.

​Synthetic biology is science—yet like art, it interrogates concepts and ideals that exceed its own disciplinary boundaries, spilling into our lived realities. What is life? What is consciousness? Where does the natural end and the synthetic begin? And who gets to shape the futures we are engineering? Art wrestles with these questions too, offering different tools and ways of knowing. But most art–science collaboration still tells a familiar story: Scientists explain, artists interpret.

​Emergence enables a deeper conversation between synthetic biology and art, grounded in real-world happenings. The ten-volume catalog documents the exhibition of the same name, curated by Fathomers and presented as part of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide in 2024. Beyond simple translation or illustration, Emergence facilitates a true exchange among artists, scientists, and artist-scientists. As coeditor Dr. Yewande Pearse writes, “A just future is not the inevitable outcome of technological progress but the result of deliberate choices we must make about how we relate to life itself, both human and nonhuman.”

​Join us for an afternoon featuring neuroscientist, science communicator, and Emergence catalog coeditor Dr. Yewande Pearse in conversation with multihyphenate artist, educator, and AfroRithm Futures Group cofounder Ahmed Best, whose work with the group was presented in Emergence. Moderated by Jason E.C. Wright of Burntsienna Research Society, the conversation will build on Pearse’s catalog essay to explore decolonial turns in science and science communications as well as the role of Afrofuturism in creating the futures we want to live in.

​Doors at 2 PM; Conversation begins at 2:30 PM

​Hot tea and snacks will be served. In celebration of the holiday season, we encourage you to come ready to shop around Rep.Club’s incredible inventory!