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Anna Dumitriu

Brighton
British contemporary artist exploring bioscience & emerging technologies www.annadumitriu.co.uk
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Anna Dumitriu (1969) is an award winning, internationally renowned, British artist who works with BioArt, sculpture, installation, and digital media to explore our relationship to infectious diseases, synthetic biology and robotics. She has an extensive international exhibition profile including ZKM, Ars Electronica, BOZAR, The Picasso Museum, Kunstlerhaus Vienna, Liljevalchs, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Philadelphia Science Center, MOCA Taipei, HeK Basel, LABoral, Art Laboratory Berlin, the 6th Guangzhou Triennial, and The History of Science Museum Oxford. Her work is held in several major public collections, including ZKM (recent acquisition), the Science Museum London and Eden Project. 

Dumitriu is a renowned speaker and has presented talks on her work at prestigious venues including TATE Modern, Princeton University, Imperial College London, The University of Oxford, La Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature, and UCLA. She was the 2018 President of the Science and the Arts section of the British Science Association.

Her work is featured in many books including Bio Art: Altered Realities published by Thames and Hudson in 2016 and many other significant publications across contemporary art and science including Frieze, Artforum International Magazine, Leonardo Journal, The Art Newspaper, Art Quarterly, Nature and The Lancet.

She currently holds visiting research fellowships at The National Institute of Health Research: Leeds Biomedical Research Centre, University of Hertfordshire, Waag, and in the Magan Centre for Applied Mycology at Cranfield University as well as artist-in-residence roles with Modernising Medical Microbiology Project at the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Current collaborations also include VIB KU Leuven Centre for Brain Disease Research, “Fermenting Futures” with BOKU University Vienna, Manna: Epigenetics, Conflict and Intergenerational Trauma with Kings College London, “AI and Infection Prevention” with Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and “Unruly Objects” exploring conservation of antiquities and contemporary BioArt with the Department of Antiquities and Works of Art at University of West Attica.

Recent projects include: “Black Rock Beachcombers” a series of three public sculpture on Brighton (UK) seafront, “The Mutability of Memories and Fates” with Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells at Helmholtz Zentrum München, “Mysteries and Mycotoxins” with Cranfield University funded by the 2023 Massee Award from the British Mycological Society, “Biotechnology from the Blue Flower” with the EU H2020 CHIC Consortium exploring new plant breeding methods and CRISPR, “Fermenting Futures” focussed on yeast biotechnology in collaboration with the Institute of Microbial Biotechnology at BOKU in Vienna “Cyberspecies Proximity” with Schindler as part of an EU Vertigo S+T+ARTS residency exploring how we will share cities of the future with robots, “ArchaeaBot: A Post Singularity and Post-Climate Change Life-form” an underwater robot based on the most ancient forms of life on each, created through an EMAP residency with LABoral, “Precious Cells” with the Human Developmental Biology Initiative and the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge, “Entangled Health” via a 2021 Institute of Advanced Studies Fellowship at the University of Surrey, an exploration of the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare support systems with the EU CAPABLE Project, Collateral Effects which explored the hidden impacts of the pandemic from cultural and scientific perspectives, and as part of the EU Better Factory project which explored how biomaterials and augmented reality can impact sustainability and the circular economy in wine production.

Dumitriu is director of The Institute of Unnecessary Research (IUR), a global hub for artists and researchers working experimentally with curiosity-driven research which she founded in 2004. She was also lead artist on the Creative Europe supported project “Trust Me, I’m an Artist” which investigates the novel ethical problems that arise when artists create artwork in laboratory settings. Her book of the same name, co-authored with Professor Bobbie Farsides, was published in 2014. 

In 2012 Dumitriu received the Society for Applied Microbiology Communication Award, and in 2020 she was awarded the Grand Prize: Best Art Overall in the Microbe Art 2020 Competition by the Federation of European Microbiology Societies (FEMS). She has twice been nominated for the EU S+T+ARTS Prize in 2017 for Make Do and Mend and in 2022 for Susceptible, and was a winner in the Science and Art Category for Falling Walls 2021 for "Fermenting Futures".

Lived Experience

Based in Brighton, UK

 

AI and Infection Prevention: Expanded Cholera Data Set

Black Rock Beachcombers

Fragile Microbiome

ArchaeaBot: A Post Singularity and Post Climate Change Life-form

Plague Dress

Featured in

Blog

Highlights: 26 August - 1 September, 2024

Curated

Mourning

By Holly Slingsby
Curated

Highlights: 2 - 8 December, 2024

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