On Being a Microbioartist: Research at the intersections of art, microbiology and more-than human culture

I explore the physical, emotional and political relationships between humans and Candida albicans (an opportunistic fungal pathogen of humans). These relationships span immunology and ecology, gender and sexuality (both human and microbial), microbiology and evolutionary biology, public health and body discipline, institutional frameworks and kinship. I examine the microbiopolitical implications of the recent revolution in our understanding of the human body as being at least half non-human. I combine scientific experimentation, art–making, evolutionary ecology and queer theory to posit the human body as a queer ecology and explore the sexuality, performativity and community of C. albicans within this ecology. This talk provides an overview of my practice-led research with the CandidaHomo ecology, considering the human body from the perspective of the microbe, as a complex, dynamic and sensual habitat.