A curatorial collective is reaching out to renowned bioartists, ecoartists, and kinetic artists in New Orleans, across the United States, and around the world. With this call we are also soliciting artifacts and organisms from wild artists: school children, environmental advocates, community organizers, and scholars who do not all have recognizable art credentials. Pushing Joseph Beuys' famous decree--"You are all artists"--beyond human realms we will also frame microbes, insects, and plants as creative agents.The Multispecies Salon originated in the San Francisco Bay Area where artists have been collaborating with anthropologists to explore human relations with other species. The Salon has orbited around the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in San Francisco (in 2008) and San Jose (in 2006). The coming of the AAA to New Orleans, from 17-21 November, prompted us to organize Multispecies Salon 3. Our art exhibit accompanies the emergence of multispecies ethnography, a new mode of anthropological research and writing about how human lives are entangled with animals, plants, fungi, and microbes.
To submit an artifact or artwork to the Multispecies Salon e-mail us an image or a brief description of your piece (200 words or less): Multispecies.Salon@gmail.com. All submissions should fit within one of the three themes described on this website: 1) Life in the Age of Biotechnology, 2) Edible Companions, and 3) Hope in Blasted Landscapes. If you would like to submit a bioart piece, using living matter as your medium, please include an additional statement addressing how the piece should be cared for in the gallery and any public health concerns. Submissions are due on September 1st and participants will be notified by September 15th if their piece is accepted. Opening night will be November 13th, 2010.
