Foto: Marius Fiskum / www.mariusfiskum.no

Jérémie McGowan had his first day at GenØk last week. He joins the centre in a 30% position as designer and curator in the NFR-funded ReWrite project. Rewrite advances new philosophical and cultural knowledge about the ways in which human/nature relationships affect, and are affected by, modern biotechnologies.

Jérémie will work with the project’s 3rd work package, which looks at how artistic research and methods can be used to develop new understandings and alternative perspectives around biotechnological future scenarios. He is really looking forward to getting going: “ReWrite addresses complex, socially relevant problems with a lot of potential for art and design experimentation. There’s a lot to engage with here, and I’m looking forward to developing, together with the rest of the ReWrite team, various proposals and prototypes that can be critical, speculative and playful, as needed. GenØk is also an extremely interesting, multidisciplinary workplace. Being part of this as a designer is a dream come true!”

Trine Antonsen, researcher and coordinator of ReWrite, is also excited about this collaboration: “Scientific and political debates about the development and use of new biotechnologies such as CRISPR are often polarized and removed from the daily lives of ordinary people – even though at the end of the day this has meaning for something that all of us relate to all the time: namely, our food. ReWrite wants to involve art and design in order to stimulate creative thinking around future food. With his unique background, Jérémie will work to activate broad participation in public debate. We are very happy to have Jérémie as part of the ReWrite team.”

With an international background in design, art, research, teaching and curating, Jérémie has previously been amongst other things director of Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, senior curator at Nasjonalmuseet and associate professor at Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i Oslo. Jérémie will be with GenØk until February 2022.