Bioart as Collaborative Research Infrastructure / Le bioart comme infrastructure de recherche collaborative

What do we call “bioart” in Canada, or more precisely, how do we accurately identify this  distinct field of practice that sits between biological science and art?

The answer changes  depending on language, region, disciplinary lineage, funding structures, institutions, and  networks. Bioart, art biologique, art vivant, arts-sciences, biomedia, biodesign, and related terms  might overlap but are not necessarily interchangeable. Those differences, particularly language  differences, affect who becomes visible in literature searches, who is counted in national  mappings, which communities encounter one another, and what policymakers perceive as a  coherent field worthy of recognition and support. If Canada’s anglophone and francophone  formations are described through somewhat different vocabularies, circulate through partially  separate networks, and develop through different institutional histories, national research and  innovation policy may systematically fail to see the full field. This article therefore asks: What is  lost in translation when bioart is mapped as a national field, and what research infrastructure and  policy mechanisms could bridge Canada’s anglophone and francophone formations without  flattening their differences? 

This pertinent question has emerged through BioArt in Canada, a SSHRC-funded  Knowledge Synthesis Grant project mapping the history, development, current landscape, and  policy relevance of bioart practices across the country (“Postdoctoral Fellow”). As we began  assembling literature, practitioners, institutions, laboratories, artist-run centres, and thematic sites of inquiry, a methodological problem quickly became apparent: the field slightly changes  depending on the language used to search for it (Figure 1). Anglophone and francophone  practitioners do not necessarily use equivalent terms to describe practices involving living systems, biotechnology, biological materials, and collaborations between artists and scientists (Bioart). Searching for the single identifier “bioart” therefore risks producing an incomplete  dataset, as well as a distorted or incomplete picture of the field. A major consideration is that this  then reproduces the visibility of already well-indexed works, practitioners, and networks while  overlooking practices embedded in different linguistic, disciplinary, and institutional contexts. 

This problem extends beyond bioart as a community in practice. In anglophone Canadian  policy and research contexts, community-based biotechnology practices are often described  through terms such as DIYBio, while francophone contexts may use science de garage. The  Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), for example, has used these different terms when  engaging with overlapping communities of independent and community-based biological  experimentation. PHAC describes the same 2026 national summit as the Do-It-Yourself (DIY)  Biology and Bioart Summit in English and the Sommet sur la biologie de garage et le bioart in  French (“Public Health Agency”; “Sommet sur la biologie”). Throughout the corresponding  webpages, “DIY biology” and “DIY biologists” become biologie de garage and biologistes de  garage. These terms direct researchers toward different lineages of linguistic literatures, policy  documents, and practitioner networks, despite referring to the same nationally convened  community. A federal mapping exercise conducted through only one vocabulary would overlook  relevant actors and activities simply because they are named differently. 

For BioArt in Canada, this linguistic divergence creates a generative methodological  responsibility. Just as bioart encompasses a multitude of vibrant practices with living materials, a national knowledge synthesis should treat “bioart” as a living, variable category. We understand  that translating a fixed set of English search terms will not adequately reveal equivalent  francophone histories, practices, and communities. Mapping the field requires searching across  multiple vocabularies, following the institutional and practitioner networks through which unique terms circulate, and remaining attentive to practices that may belong within the scope of  our study without having necessarily identified themselves as “bioart.” This approach certainly  complicates the already complex task of defining the field but is a necessary challenge to avoid  reproducing existing patterns of visibility and exclusion. Bioart in Canada is globally distinctive because of its diversity across languages, regions, cultures, disciplines, institutions, and  communities of practice. For our project, a national synthesis will not seek to resolve these  differences into a single, standardized account of the field, but to develop methods capable of  making its plurality more visible. 

To broaden participation beyond what we can identify through published literature and  institutional records, BioArt in Canada has developed a national questionnaire hosted on the  project’s Art/In Forum microsite (“BioArt in Canada”). This questionnaire creates an additional  pathway to identify practices, communities, vocabularies, and regional networks that might be  overlooked when using conventional research methods. By enabling practitioners working within  and adjacent to bioart, living art, art-science, DIY biology, biodesign, biomedia, and related  practices to self-describe their work and affiliations, this participatory approach complements  literature-based research and institutional mapping. It also contributes to an evolving account of  bioart in Canada shaped by both established terminology and existing records, as well as the  people actively producing the field.

References 

[1] Bioart : Transformations du vivant. Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2012. COILink,  coilink.org/20.500.12592/00mzds. 

[2] “BioArt in Canada.” Art/In Forum, Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, 2026,  forum.artisticintelligence.com/groups/bioart-in-canada/. Accessed 6 July 2026. 

[3] “Postdoctoral Fellow WhiteFeather Hunter Awarded Grant to Support BioArt in Canada  Project.” School of Interactive Arts & Technology, Simon Fraser University, 30 June  2026, www.sfu.ca/siat/news-events/news/2026/june/postdoctoral-fellow-whitefeather hunter-awarded-grant-to-support.html. Accessed 6 July 2026. 

[4] “Public Health Agency of Canada Do-It-Yourself Biology and Bioart Summit 2026.” PHAC  Training Portal, Public Health Agency of Canada, 21 May 2026, training formation.phac-aspc.gc.ca/local/pages/index.php?id=15&lang=en. Accessed 6 July 2026. 

[5] “Sommet sur la biologie de garage et le bioart 2026.” Portail de formation de l’ASPC, Agence de  la santé publique du Canada, training-formation.phacaspc.gc.ca/local/pages/index.php?id=15&lang=fr. Accessed 6 July 2026.

AI Acknowledgement 

The authors used ChatGPT (OpenAI) to assist with language editing, structural composition, and  French translation during the preparation of this editorial. The research, analysis, arguments, and  original intellectual contributions presented in the article are those of the authors. All content  was reviewed, verified, revised, and approved by the authors.