The Substrate of Extraction: A Bio Art Show

MESHARTS & UAAD present The Substrate of Extraction
What can a cell reveal about ownership? What can a microorganism transmit across generations and borders? What histories remain in a grain of sand, a fragment of plastic, or the shell of a dead barnacle?
Spanning biotechnology, traditional craft, sculpture, scent, moving image, and computational media, the works in The Substrate of Extraction turn to materials and processes that often remain beneath the threshold of human attention. Cells divide, mold spreads, mealworms digest, plastics circulate, scents diffuse, and biological remains acquire digital afterlives. Yet histories of industrial production, resource extraction, ecological transformation, and unequal exchange have always been embedded within matter itself.
A substrate is the matter upon which something grows, acts, or leaves a trace. In this exhibition, it is both what extraction operates upon and the ground through which extraction reveals itself. Through dialogue across cultures and disciplines, The Substrate of Extraction asks what structures become visible when we attend to their smallest traces.

Supported by Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan; Japan Arts Council; CG-ARTS; WAN: Art & Tech Creators Global Network; Japan Creator Support Fund
Artists: Marina Lisa Komiya, Tsuyoshi Anzai, Shahira Hammad, William Takao Eliot, Yan Shao
Curated by Amy Xiaofan Jiang
Programs
October 23 — Opening Reception and Performance
11:00 AM — Gallery Open7:30 PM — Curator-Led Exhibition Tour8:00 PM — Performance by William Takao Eliot and meal worms8:30 PM — Reception and Mingle9:00 PM — Event Ends
October 24 — Artist Panel
2:00 PM — Artist Talks
The program will feature 10-minute presentations by Marina Lisa Komiya, Tsuyoshi Anzai, Shahira Hammad, and William Takao Eliot, followed by an audience Q&A.
About
Underground Art And Design (@uaad.art) is an artist-led curatorial platform and community based in NYC. It supports and amplifies change-provoking artists and designers who work across emerging technology, ecological futures and underrepresented cultures.
Mesh Art Center (@meshartcenter) is a cultural hub where art meets research, technology, and science. Based in Brooklyn, they operate as a networked ecosystem that connects organizations, artists, curators, researchers, engineers, activists, makers, and thinkers across disciplines and geographies.
WAN: Art & Tech Creators Global Network (@wanart) is an international incubation program dedicated to supporting emerging Japanese practitioners working across art and technology as they develop their careers internationally.