http://www.morethanhuman.studio/research daily 0.75 2020-06-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1475672854106-MOHFT4XI0U5MA0I9YNMH/Honeybee+Cartography.jpg Research / Writing TC cartography is a project that began in late 2015 aimed at using tissue culture techniques to map the 22 million year old symbiotic relationship between bees and plants. Pollen samples are collected from hives, time stamped, and cultured in the lab using pollen tissue culture techniques. The result is a living map of haploid plantlets which in sum describe the flight patterns of bees as they move through the environment: a map of the complex and often invisible forms of inter-kingdom hospitality that exist within ecosystems. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1408487887544-67S5QCLJDJKPY0OK6ZN0/Maasai+in+beekeepers+outfit.jpg Research / Writing In 2014, as part of my graduate studies at the University of Michigan, I worked with a group of undergraduates in a community-oriented sustainability project intended to support the Maasai community of Lesoit, Tazania. Our goal was to design and build a high efficiency wood burning stove, also known as a “Rocket Stove,” to help mitigate some of the environmental issues tied to more traditional methods of cooking. In addition, I was individually solicited to assist a burgeoning beekeeping program in the community that is intended to provide sustainable income for the elderly, handicapped, and widowed members of the community. It was my task to demonstrate effective beekeeping techniques, and to provide insights into the processing and use of hive products. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415521162171-G7QK5G3XDQX121GXL4CE/image-asset.jpeg Research / Writing https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1408025206448-4D9EHXY1Y84NESVR92QV/Gina_McCarthy+and+Me.jpg Research / Writing https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1408026753150-3D0KLPMWH3UXCWZHQ82Q/me+and+fernanda+to+market.jpg Research / Writing https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1408117495495-FIYOS0DAOMKDJI3KODJ7/Localization+Posters+on+Campus.jpg Research / Writing https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412649911854-50QEFFOLWYMLVGTAJZCA/Banff+slip_4.jpg Research / Writing In 2009 I was a resident artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts. I found myself working late at night in the clay studio, often trying to figure out how to produce the ineffable qualities of “irregular beauty” that craft philosopher Yanagi Sōetsu described in his book The Unknown Craftsman. At one point in the process, around three in the morning, I decided to go for a walk around the facilities to clear my head. As I walked down the corridors I noticed a subtle luminescence of pattern and texture emanating from the floor. I looked down and realized that what I was seeing were the gestures of the janitor’s mop. I was struck by how each loop and swirl of his cleaning reminded me of the beautiful slip work I had seen in some of Japan’s most rarefied Hakame-style ceramics. It also occured to me that this same janitor was using this same mopping technique to clean the drips of slip I had left on my studio floor. For days I would make a point of working late into the morning with the hope of catching the janitor, and each time I would only find the elegant traces of his evaporating trail. After weeks of trying to find him, I finally caught him in the act of mopping. I explained how much I enjoyed his brush work. He was humbly unphased. I asked him about his life and he explained to me that he had degrees in philosophy and had come to Banff to be the janitor. I asked if he would be willing to collaborate with me in a role reversal - for him to make slip work, and for me to clean up after him. He agreed to the concept as long as I never revealed his name or showed his face. He mopped the floor of the gallery with the slip of the pots I had been throwing all month. The slip was on the floor for three days. At the end I mopped up after him. I was not nearly as talented. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1408020909689-9GNNW8AN32FESZC4AOLQ/bee_causality_diagram.jpg Research / Writing - Protecting our Food Systems: Responding to Honey Bee Population Decline in Michigan This paper represents a one-year investigation into the complex causes and consequences of the current honey bee population decline, and potential responses that key stakeholders in Michigan can adopt to mitigate the problem. The investigation consisted of a literature review as well as author participation in various beekeeping conferences and meetings. Conversations with beekeepers Honey Bee Population Decline in Michigan and other states, as well as other key stakeholders, also helped guide our research and recommendations. We begin the paper by outlining the state of honey bee population declines nationally and in Michigan. The second section describes some of the consequences of these declines for Michigan’s agricultural production and economy. The third section summarizes the various factors that likely contribute to current honey bee population declines. In the fourth section we briefly identify local mitigation techniques that can be (and are being) implemented by farmers and beekeepers in Michigan. In the fifth section we present recommendations for combating honey bee population decline at the state and national level. http://mjpa.umich.edu/files/2014/08/MJPA-Vol11.pdf https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1408015809665-OB0SYNAHQKGKOLH5U6HP/Tepco+Tower.1.jpg Research / Writing - TEPCO Headquarters During the summer of 2014 I traveled to Fukushima, Japan. The focus of my research trip were to look at post-3/11 food systems within the context of what environmental theorist Rob Nixon describes as “Slow Violence” in his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. “Violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence not viewed as violence at all.” [1] Ultimately, my goal while in Japan was to produce a body of work consisting of photographs, critical writing, audio recordings, interviews, and performative meals, with the intention of presenting the social and environmental importance of Japan’s post-3/11 food systems. I saw a number of sites more expansively related to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear disaster, including TEPCO headquarters, Fukushima City, and nearby farms, markets, and restaurants. I witnessed a number of cultural phenomena that both enforced and created disjuncture with the post-3/11 narrative being conveyed in the U.S. ________________________________ [1] Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072343   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415522198789-V4R2YDSWPF2ZDD3ISIR3/IMG_2057.JPG Research / Writing On the Resurrection of a Home - or - Cooking in a Dead Man’s Kitchen   Whether its Max Roach keeping 4/4 time on his drums to “Cherokee,” or Django Reinhardt picking the strings of his gypsy guitar to the melody of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” you know when you’re listening to the truly cosmopolitan sounds of Jazz. Some say Jazz is dead. I don’t agree. Jazz is a way of living and permeates life as a style. A good cook understands this. They understand that to make food with soul, the cook has to dance and swing; to improvise with what they’ve got, with the conditions they’ve been given, despite any tricks, talents, or tools they may bring. Cooking is Jazz incarnate. All cooks have their kitchen. It doesn’t matter how big it is. It doesn’t matter how many burners the stove has, or even if it has an oven. You can cook a gourmet meal with nothing but a camping stove, a second-hand frying pan, and a good piece of bacon. But the logic of that arrangement is yours, and as a result you control the conditions of your success. The location of the hood switch, what kinds of ladles are available, even the height of the counter are all essential to making one’s own flavors. I used to say that what made a cook’s food the cook’s was the taste of their sweat getting into the roux. Now I think it’s just as much the flavor of a thousand meals, soaked into the cutting board, coating the bottom of the sliced onions that sting at your eyes, that scent and mould the flavor of the soup too. It’s all part of the logic that gives the ineffable flavor of THAT cook’s cooking. If you want ONLY YOUR flavors, then don’t you ever cook in a dead man’s kitchen. Dead men do more than don’t talk: they downright confound you in a foreign tongue. What you thought you understood, what you think you know about cooking, goes right out the window along with the smoke from burning something on their stove. Don’t you ever cook in a dead man’s kitchen; that is unless you want to play Jazz. See, Jazz says “Hey, here’s a standard. I know it. You know it. Hell, the audience knows it too, but you play the erhu and I play the trombone, and somehow we got to figure out how to play the ‘Dead Man Blues’ together.” So you swing. You improvise. You collaborate. You make something new that is greater than yourself and that is beyond what you would ever do on your own. That’s if your host is still alive and you can jam in the kitchen with them. But a dead man’s kitchen is something else. See, that’s where the spirit of the player -his logic- gets passed on for a new generation to play. Did the Preservation Hall Jazz Band stop playing when Allan Jaffe passed? No. Did their music suddenly become bad? Hell no. Did the music grow, and evolve, and bring other new and younger players in to keep the music alive? Yes. And thank god it did, because lord knows we all love the honey-sweet sound that drips from the bottom of their bells when they play “Clarinet Marmalade”. You can cook with a dead man when you jam with his protégé, the offspring of his genius, in the logic of his kitchen. And when you do, it’s like rolling back the rock off the tomb, coaxing spring into bloom. Now you’re cooking. If you’re any good, your kitchen will become a stage: your guests will gather to chat, to cheer, to request, to suggest, and to watch your frenzied energy transform into roasted, caramelized, and harmonized dishes. Their jokes and stories will season the pots, and together you will have composed a meal with soul. And if you’re technique is honest, and true, and good, your guests will place in their mouth something that will nourish their bodies and spirits, and you will have brought that dead man and his home back to life. The silence of eating a good meal will be followed by the laughter it inspires. The warmth of the meal, and the community it has created, will de-ice the blood of the home that had gone cold with its master’s passing. No, don’t you ever cook in a dead man’s kitchen, unless, of course, you want to be the guest that brings his song back to life; even if it’s played in a slightly different tune. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415523487067-TV3FJPK9FZOBVWL62VT2/Lightbulb_2012.jpg Research / Writing https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415157114225-Y65T7L9P5LOWKI3YU3QI/Tarot+Reading.jpg Research / Writing In 2012 I happened upon a facsimile of the first African-American cookbook while doing research on the history of sugar in the Longone culinary collection at the University of Michigan. The book was written by Malinda Russell in 1866. The cookbook opens with an autobiography by Russell explaining how cooking had become a way for her to support herself while she searched for Utopia in both Liberia and Michigan. The book is the only known document by Russell and her whereabouts after its publication remain unknown. At the time I was taking a course on "Alternative (His)stories" with Professor Tiya Miles. Professor Miles was extremely supportive of my alternative methods for conducting research, and I felt empowered to try and conduct an interview with the deceased by way of a psychic medium. During a trip to New York, I came across a psychic's shop in the West Village. The psychic read my cards, channeled Ms. Russell, and ultimately provided a kind of alternative interview for my research, while simultaneously participating in the creation of a new work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1416857096598-GTRTKNCAY8ZBZX3DQ27Y/image-asset.jpeg Research / Writing - Surrender https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1426494559645-NTZ0HMAV3H7CTVFOYIYR/Black+Hive+Press+Logo.jpg Research / Writing https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1431959474747-UHCLM3UHOV32MWW9ABRY/Africafe.jpg Research / Writing In 2014 I was part of a design team focused on developing a Rocket Stove to share with a community of Maasai in rural Tanzania. As an avid cook I was interested in how the stove might assist the Maasai with their daily cooking, and perhaps also offer a means to roast coffee in a country that was beginning to be well known for its beans. As a result, I began looking to coffee roasting traditions for inspiration, such as wok-roasting found in Southeast Asia, or the ancient coffee ceremony of Ethiopia that seemed so strongly in dialogue with my own life-long investment in Japanese tea ceremony. It had been my hope that upon arrival in Tanzania I would be able to source local beans and roast them for my team and the community we were working with. However, the reality of coffee in Tanzania couldn’t have been further from my own preconceptions. Once in Tanzania, I was shocked to find that the only coffee I was able to purchase was a corporate brand of freeze-dried coffee called Africafe. The coffee was less than satisfactory and presented itself as a daily paradox as I drove by countless coffee plantations and trucks stacked with beans. As a result of this direct experience, I was able to understand the complexities of how coffee is valued and used in Tanzania, and how both use and exchange value were radically different from my own privileged American perspective. In response, There Can Be No Coffee Where It Is Grown is a dialogical project which utilizes the tools, images, and stories of my experience as a means to share with others the complex issues of sustainability and culture embedded within the ritual of consuming coffee. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412800587695-DUX9UY77OE6GVWDBZ37B/image-asset.jpeg Research / Writing - Silicone Fabric Coatings (Syl-Mer): "The Invisible Protectors" 1956 Dow Corning In 2013 I was awarded one of the first Dow Sustainability Fellowships at the University of Michigan. I used this opportunity to request a visit to Dow Chemical headquarters. After passing through an anti-terrorist checkpoint and having my cell phone camera censored, I had lunch and a tour along with five other fellows, each representing the schools of Public Health, Public Policy, Law, Business, and Natural Resources and Environment. This tour included an extensive walk through one of Dow’s animal testing facilities. Because my tools for recording the experience were taken from me, I relied on asking an employee with an uncensored phone to take the only photo documentation I have inside Dow. To support this lone photograph, I have objects, photographs of my censored phone taken after my departure, images reconstructed from memory, and storytelling as a means to share the experience. My intentions for the work are to share with others the tremendous complexity of dealing with issues of sustainability. http://www.morethanhuman.studio/untitled-iceburg-archive daily 0.75 2014-10-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1413085267125-JRVLE6E1H0888OQKIDCO/Untitled+%28Iceburg+Archive%29.jpg Untitled (Iceberg Archive) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1413085267125-JRVLE6E1H0888OQKIDCO/Untitled+%28Iceburg+Archive%29.jpg Untitled (Iceberg Archive) http://www.morethanhuman.studio/the-san-francisco-worlds-fair-of-2007 daily 0.75 2014-08-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412631186927-66OG6UKSOE9DUPX29ZXB/sfworldsfair2007.jpg The San Francisco World's Fair of 2007 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412631186927-66OG6UKSOE9DUPX29ZXB/sfworldsfair2007.jpg The San Francisco World's Fair of 2007 http://www.morethanhuman.studio/publications-/-press daily 0.75 2026-09-17 http://www.morethanhuman.studio/mud daily 0.75 2014-11-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412631042253-LNESLV8QWJUJ1IW2IWOG/image-asset.jpeg MUD - "Tokyo Texas" Levis Concept Design Film. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412631042253-LNESLV8QWJUJ1IW2IWOG/image-asset.jpeg MUD - "Tokyo Texas" Levis Concept Design Film. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415520288741-BRMSYMJ7T40FRYLCJ67K/image-asset.jpeg MUD - Mud Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415520508630-BSBGGIZ4BOZTN99UNC1V/image-asset.jpeg MUD - MUD Kiln https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415520622336-L4MZSXF4AZ3N0T1X5919/Papa_project.jpg MUD - Throwing area with painting from Reed Anderson's "Papa Object" http://www.papaobject.com/reed-anderson-papa-object/ http://www.morethanhuman.studio/the-waypoint daily 0.75 2014-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412605207886-7XM4K47IH5WA4TXGY2BJ/Waypoint.jpg The Waypoint https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412605207886-7XM4K47IH5WA4TXGY2BJ/Waypoint.jpg The Waypoint https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412605426792-OGBOA3LPTNIK3PYOHVHB/IMG_3852.JPG The Waypoint https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412605518022-MMLV2BTZEEYJ2Z55Y79L/_MG_3866.JPG The Waypoint http://www.morethanhuman.studio/ferus-1957-1966 daily 0.75 2014-08-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412630922002-3PB1J41VPNNS9YAP2TZ6/ferus.jpg Ferus: 1957 - 1966 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412630922002-3PB1J41VPNNS9YAP2TZ6/ferus.jpg Ferus: 1957 - 1966 http://www.morethanhuman.studio/curatorial-practice daily 0.75 2026-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412630326733-YZXCAFI2V61WSX8XSKS8/QueensNails.JPG Curatorial Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412630569146-PX7YVQUO4FRVJO37PT6V/Berggruen.jpg Curatorial Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1412631703963-JNWRTHV56BBI52WLLFUQ/ballroom.jpg Curatorial Practice http://www.morethanhuman.studio/art-practice daily 1.0 2026-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1459464822364-XMFUBG7UH95PPFPNXQTY/BIANCO_CORNELL_CARD_IMAGE_Large.jpg Art Practice Our Future Exists Because We Have Imagined It was an exhibition and series of workshops that engaged the larger community of students, faculty, and staff at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. These workshops and exhibition became the foundation for an ongoing collaborative project with faculty members in English, Biology, and Fine Art, an initiative that seeks to transform Cornell College into a bee-friendly campus. The project focused on art as a form of collective “sustainable envisioning,” which enabled members of the community to transform Cornell College campus into a refuge for endangered pollinators. The project was initiated in October of 2015, with an exhibition of the artist's work, documentation of workshops, and student photography and envisioning drawings. The project has since gone on to inspire students to advocate for and receive funding to start a campus apiary, and has gained approval by the president of Cornell College to bring honeybees onto the college's campus. In addition, Professor Mouton has continued to advocate for both Cornell College and Mount Vernon to be officially designated "bee-friendly" sites through Bee City USA certification. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1413298507707-AUX7TT6AKQPUCVRY3BDT/Mike+with+frame+of+bees.jpg Art Practice In response to the recent honeybee population declines, I have dedicated myself to the plight of the honeybee and focused on understanding bee behavior, history, and the bee’s relationship to humynkind. I have studied honeybee behaviour - namely nursing, feeding, guarding, and multi-sensory communication - and looked to it as a framework to spread awareness about the plight of the honeybee to other humyns. In the spirit of colony reproduction (a.k.a. swarming), On Becoming a Human Honeybee seeks to create intergenerational efforts to correct honeybee population decline and reconnect humyns with honeybees as their ancient symbiotes. As a result, I have become an active member in the broader gobal beekeeping community by conducting research on Honeybee Population Declines, co-developing university beekeeping programs, demonstrating the lost arts of beekeeping - such as “wild bee hunting” and apitherapy - and most importantly, by communicating with other humyns in multi-sensory forms about honeybees. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1470820687160-J84PMF1FDV2K2N68MEZL/3264.jpg Art Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1525604969112-R4RK6Z4UQDF1327VDD4E/Bush+Blaster+Photo_w_Text.jpg Art Practice - The Bush Blaster, 2017 Inspired by the zeitgeist of ‘speculative design,’ The Bush Blaster was created in response to the the current global honeybee crisis. Made intentionally in bad taste, the satirical strap-on pollination cannon was made to reframe the proclivity of certain kinds of humans to try and replace ‘nature’ with engineered and ‘innovative’ solutions. The Bush Blaster was commissioned by Science Gallery Dublin for their exhibition In Case Of Emergency. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1525606331028-R7U5TX3JH8KCW7XZTPX0/IMG_5755.jpg Art Practice - The Trees of St. George's Square. The Trees of St. George’s Square was a 20-minute performance situated at the base of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, commissioned by the Proximity Festival for their 2017 season. The work was performed over 100 times over the course of two weeks. The work was initially inspired by the Jacaranda mimosifolia trees planted around the grounds of the court. The trees appeared to me to be in a state of ‘bondage’ as a result of being ‘cared’ for by a gardener. The work then took on additional layers of meaning once I discovered that the site is where the city of Perth was founded, an event marked by the felling of a native Sheoak tree. The performance - part audio-guide / part one-on-one performance - takes participants through an extensive training induction designed to make them obedient to the ‘master gardener.’ Throughout the work participants learn of the various histories of plants on the site and how they have been historically manipulated and controlled for human desires. The work culminates with participants being put in a predicament where they must decide on the fate of either ‘weeding out’ or ‘planting’ a seedling grown from specimens collected from the site. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1526448005685-PNBD9BOGMELF5LIQQ086/Cropped_Oenocyte_Touchedup.jpg Art Practice - The Aristeaus Project, 2015 - Ongoing. In response to the ongoing global honeybee crises, I have been working in the lab of SymbioticA (located at the University of Western Australia) to produce an immortal honeybee cell line. This work is inspired by both the tremendous efforts of Dr. Michael J. Goblirsch and his production the world’s first honeybee cell line, AmE-711, in addition to the myth of Aristeaus, the greek god who brought bees back to life with the carcass of a bull. The Aristeaus Project largely seeks to respond to the global honeybee crises by asking what the future of beekeeping - and the interspecies relationship between humans, honeybees, and cattle - may look like in a techno-scientific future. This project has been undertaken with the tremendous support of a number of scientists, artists, and researchers. Special thanks to Dr. Michael Goblirsch, Dr. Stuart Hodgetts, Dr. Ionat Zurr, Guy Ben-Ary, The University of Western Australia, The University of Minnesota, and all the members of both SymbioticA and The University of Minnesota Bee Lab. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1556610253556-DBI8AK5V9YZDGP965BXR/SGL_SpareParts+26.2.19_002.JPG Art Practice - Hivecubator 2.0, 2019. Installation at the Science Gallery London Hivecubator is a hive-based incubator designed to care for living human tissues growing in-vitro. Hivecubator utilises a beehive’s ability to produce heat and self-regulate CO2 (Seeley, 1974) as an analogue to a laboratory incubator. The form of the Hivecubator is inspired by the Egyptian Temple of the Sun, the site of the first known representation of beekeeping. As an artwork, Hivecubator is a response to the current global honeybee crisis, and a meditation on the forms of care and control that are bound in the ancient interspecies relationship between humans and honeybees. Hivecubator 1.0 was first developed in dialogue with TC&A (Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr) and their project Compostcubator, both of which were exhibited in the Bioart pavilion during the 2016 Kenpoku arts festival in Ibaraki, Japan. Hivecubator 2.0 was commissioned by International Arts Space as part of their Know Thy Neighbour program curated by Katherine Wilkinson, and initially exhibited at the Perth City Farm. Hivecubator 2.0 has since gone on to be shown internationally, most notably at the Science Gallery London where it was included in the exhibition Spare Parts curated by Stephanie Delcroix, and used by the Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine at King's College London to grow human skin cells. Hivecubator 1.0 and Hivecubator 2.0 were made possible with the support of a number of people and organisations. Special thanks to: Tiff Bates, Sarah Brooke, Rob Cameron, Oron Catts, the Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine at King's College London, Stephanie Delcroix, Alastair Frazer, Rod Hughes, International Art Space (Perth), Jessie Krish, Brian McCallum, Hirofumi Nakamoto, John O'Shea, Perth City Farm, Satoyama Yado Tokiwaji, Yukiko Shikata, Suwa Ibaraki Pottery Studio, SymbioticA, Mark Thompson, Aruma Toyama, Devon Ward, Watanabe Apiary Co., Ltd., Katherine Wilkinson, Dean Wood, Ionat Zurr, and the Western Australia Government Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1413085896095-Z4RI12MK6KUT56FQXEGY/Bee+House_1.jpg Art Practice - The Mobile Institute for Anarcho-Communalist History and Social Transformation 2014 - ongoing 120” x 48” x 72” Lumber recycled from a beekeeper's roof, Tin, Trailer, Electronics, Beehives, Zines. The Mobile Institute for Anarcho-Communalist History and Social Transformation is a mobile exhibition space for the history of Anarcho-Communalism and a transformative apitherapy house. The project draws upon the social behavior of honeybees as described in Dr. Tom Seeley’s Honeybee Democracy in relation to the often under considered history of Anarcho-Communalism. The structure is based on vernacular Beehouse architecture, and features small exhibitions of Anarcho-Syndicalist ephemera in combination with the apitherapy technique of napping with bees. The mission of The Mobile Institute for Eco-Anarcho-Communalist History and Healing is to provide a space to recover from the grand narrative of Capitalism and to offer visitors a space to learn how to live harmoniously and cooperatively within a larger ecology in nature.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1591342037477-19EK2V8D77QY8G3PHAJ4/_MG_0067+copy.JPG Art Practice Brackish Rising was a multi-faceted project by artists Mike Bianco and Loren Kronemyer which engaged issues of salt, water, desalination, ecology, and water sovereignty in Southwest Australia. The comprehensive project called attention to the importance of the Kwinana desalination plant, the first of its kind in Australia, and a facility which has provided nearly 20% of all potable water in the Perth metropolitan area for the past decade. Through a process of interviews, community research, and site-based exploration, the artists documented and re-presented the unseen sights and sounds that define our relationship to salinity. Taking inspiration from the fluidity of water, we created a mobile research center to engage local stakeholders through a month-long program of interviews, workshops, public tours and events, and saline meals. The project extended its reach to a global public through social media, a website, and a Brackish Radio podcast. Brackish Rising was commissioned by International Art Space as part of the Know Thy Neighbour program, and presented for the 2017 Perth International Arts Festival in partnership with the City of Kwinana. www.brackishrising.com https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgPGNJWEqG?play=true https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1591283896834-QR4R90EBPICDDQQLHZ8G/Anthrocomb_Web_20200228+BIENNIAL+Installation+Mike+Bianko+Adobe+RGB+Photo+Saul+Steed+0Z2Y1483.jpg Art Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1407292558290-BKQLJ84K4U6EOPFLLV6D/aquaponic+portrait.jpg Art Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1406935957571-GW4OUENDL7XT8Q9W568A/making+gyoza.thinking+of+fukushima.table_1.jpg Art Practice Determining one’s own cultural identity can often be more complex than one may initially realize. Although I am from the West Coast of the United States, I grew up with a mother that spoke fluent Japanese, a sister who was born in Tokyo, an education in ceramics based on Japanese principles, and a community that would regularly attend Dharma talks at the local Buddhist temple. As a result, most of my life I have had an intense focus on Japanese culture. Although I think of myself as ethnically Italian, and culturally from California, in many ways I consider Japan to be my spiritual home. While I was aware of most of this, I didn’t realize how much it affected my life until the Tohoku earthquake, and the consequential Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, also known as 3/11. Prior to 3/11 Fukushima was largely known for two culinary attractions: Dumplings (called Gyoza in Japanese) and Peaches. Tragically, since the Daiichi disaster, food from Fukushima has largely been presumed toxic, ultimately casting a larger shadow over the regions proud tradition of foodways and its cultural sense of self. After visiting the Fukushima region for myself in 2014, it occurred to me that one of the more significant forms of resistance to the “slow violence” of the 3/11 disaster was to prepare and serve Gyoza in the traditional Fukushima style, and to use the meal as an opportunity to share the story of Fukushima and my experience there with others. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1407293055438-I9JTIJKWTSLQILKGZVYV/photo+%2866%29.JPG Art Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1406939692624-8D9AGE9O2CMYCU9ITDQJ/50.cent.piece.interviews.web.jpg Art Practice In 2012 I conducted a series of interviews with the ambition of assessing people’s larger social values. Participants were given a contract after which time I interviewed them based on four questions and twenty six coins. After participants had completed their interview I gave them them the coin(s) that they valued. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1408661792843-SHVO82N1FO2JWZRWBFVK/mike+with+audience.jpg Art Practice Meeting Bacon was a response to the Farm-to-Table movement. While many are happy to have artisan foods, and find comfort in the concept of their food being treated humanely, few can stomach the reality of actually confronting the animal they eat. As a result, Meeting Bacon was intended to convey to others the active knowledge that can come through cooking and eating. In the performance I prepared a lunch of BLTs with bacon I had cured myself. The performance began by talking about the importance of knowing where one’s food comes from and by exhibiting my bacon to the audience. After seeing their delight, I produced a pig’s head that the audience members had to examine prior receiving their sandwich. I wanted to create a sensory experience where participants would have to negotiate the pleasures of frying bacon with the confrontation of the pig’s severed head. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1413230382609-5LKGC7NJQCIKCVAAXUDX/image-asset.jpeg Art Practice - Explaining Dialogical Practice to Pigs. In preparation for sourcing a pig for my performance Meeting Bacon, I began to meet with farmers in my area. When I tried to explain to them what I was doing was art, I was often met with severe confusion. It occurred to me that what I was trying to explain to farmers was similar to Joseph Beuys’ How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. In response I explained dialogical practice to the pigs that I would later turn into bacon and feed to others. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1411791687119-5EEX9CC8EYQQD5YP0IAH/Block_Cup_Before_1.jpg Art Practice In 2012 I created a ceramic and wood version of the popular beer drinking game Beer Pong named “Block Cup.” The game was initially a response to the vast amounts of red plastic cups that would litter the streets of Ann Arbor every weekend. My intention was to create an artful drinking game that would deny the use of plastics and create durable, reusable, and beautiful drinking pieces. In addition, the game employs a “make the rules as you go” structure, lending itself to varying and dynamic modes of play. Then, in September 2014, it came to my attention that Pabst Brewing company, one of the most iconic American beers used in students’ drinking games, had been purchased by a Russian beverage company. As a result, I created a version of Block Cup as a response to the company’s acquisition and to the ongoing conflict between Russian and Ukraine - a conflict that few students remained unaware of. Block Cup: PBR/Ukraine Edition utilized ceramic game pieces in Russian and Ukrainian colors, a board with the silhouette of Ukraine, and was played using only Pabst Blue Ribbon. I gave a speech at the beginning of play, and I read news from the Russian/Ukrainian conflict over a megaphone. Ultimately, gameplay was meant to metaphorically mimic real life attitudes towards these issues by both Russians and Americans broadly. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1415157000279-YIIWZYAJZ75D6QU62H7K/Neon.jpg Art Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1428404978919-MOHOMZQERLWB3JIJZHXS/Hive_Trophallaxis_Detail_Gallery.jpg Art Practice https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1406937988403-5RVBMOP65IUJ8K1Z0I6B/Eco-Chat+Corktown.jpg Art Practice In the summer of 2012 I was asked to participate in a site-generated exhibition in Detroit. At the time I was focused on issues of human apathy in the wake of environmental crises and drew upon the work of Australian physiotherapist Michael White and his writings on Narrative Practice. For the exhibition I opened a hotline for anonymous members of the public to share their “Eco-Anxiety” or environmental crises-driven concerns. The intention of the project is to help members of the public construct new narratives for themselves to move beyond the anxiety that inhibits them from making positive change to environmental crises. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1413087343249-0IV7U525MF2MRNRMKOUT/Sisyphus+Propolis_detail.jpg Art Practice Detail: Books by Ayn Rand bound and coated with beeswax Dimensions Vary https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1418510065395-KXWP934WUDGJY7P4E8SS/Tour_Beuys.jpg Art Practice In 2014, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, moved a 250 year old Burr Oak 500 feet to make room for an architectural addition. The moving of the oak, which had been originally scheduled to be cut down, incited unrest among the environmentally minded students, faculty, and staff on campus, and called the school’s “sustainability” values into question. In response, Ross tried to appease the community by moving the tree at a cost of $400,000. Such a lavish expense not only enrage the community more, but presented deep ethical questions on issues of sustainability. The tree was moved, its possibility for survival questionable, with a large number of students locked in a permanent state of anguish over the matter.32 While I myself was disturbed by such a move, the gesture seemed reminiscent of how a collector might thoughtfully move a sculpture to make room for a new couch or television. Fortunately, because of my interdisciplinary practice, and extended network of students throughout the various schools on campus, I was invited by a group of graduate students to give a tour of the Ross art collection. While the invitation was made in the absence of any criticality of the oak tree, I used the tour as an opportunity to educate fellow graduate students on the themes of “Art,” “The Environment,” “Society,” and “Intervention” already present in the collection, with the intention of framing the oak within a larger discourse of relational aesthetics. While the tour took every opportunity to point out the oddities in the school’s relationship to the art and the environment - including pointing out a Starbucks placed in front of a work by Lita Albuquerque - it also pointed to the work of Nikki Lee and Joseph Beuys as examples of artists who create interventions and participate in socially engaged work, offering a moment of reflection for the audience to realize I was engaging the same methods. Of particular importance was my discussion of Beuy’s use of the term “Social Sculpture”, his connection to oaks as druidian sculpture, and his landmark project 7000 Oaks. This history primed my audience for the "surprise work" in the collection tour: the moved oak. Because I had framed the moving of the oak within the themes already present in the schools collection, and informed its move with Beuy’s own notions of sculpture, I was able to open a discussion of the tree that went beyond anguish and into debate. Through this debate students were able to have a thoughtful discussion on what the criteria for both art and sustainability are. Collectively we worked through the moving of the oak as a relational work, and consequently were able to have a more complex discussion on the often challenging nuances within the discourse of sustainability and capitalism. Ultimately, the entire process felt both pleasurable and cathartic, a form of nurturing with only one or two of the participants eventually realizing they had been involved in a form of my Social Craft. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1432043775693-UDZB8E05V8IA3MMYW465/Bianco_Santoro_Halpern_Omni.jpg Art Practice http://www.morethanhuman.studio/about daily 0.75 2020-01-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dbace5e4b07b7551afb34b/1524561945690-JXZA4RKFTODM1JAD2YPT/Perth+Artists+Portraits1746.jpg About Photo courtesy of Peter Cheng http://www.morethanhuman.studio/contact daily 0.75 2014-10-07 http://www.morethanhuman.studio/new-products daily 0.75 2020-06-10