Art department graduate student Felipe Shibuya assisting during a Coalesce Open House. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

A participant extracting lichen DNA during a Coalesce Open House. The open house was led by Solon Morse and Paul Vanouse. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

Architect and artist Zbigniew Oksiuta leading Coalesce's opening workshop, Skin, Membrane, Habitat @ Coalesce teaching lab, University at Buffalo, 2016

Participants attending Coalesce’s Skin, Membrane, Habitat workshop led by Zbigniew Oksiuta | Coalesce teaching lab, University at Buffalo, 2016. Photographer: Douglas Levere

Zbigniew Oksiuta | Skin: Membrane: Habitat | Work in progress, 2016. In his artist-in-residency Oksiuta seeks to grow spherical membranes using bacteria similar to those in Kambucha drinks, into which he inserts blue-green algae, and which are designed to be isotonic in water.

Byron Rich and Mary Magic Tsang | Open Source Estrogen | Installation @ Piksel Festival, Bergen, Norway 2016 | Open Source Estrogen, co-developed at Coalesce, combines do-it-yourself science, body and gender politics, and ecological ramifications of the present. The installation contains DIY tools for measuring and extracting environmental estrogen in waterways.

Byron Rich and Mary Magic Tsang • Open Source Estrogen • Installation detail, CyberArts Festival, Ars Electronica, 2017 • Open Source Estrogen combines do-it-yourself science, body and gender politics, and ecological ramifications of the present. This suitcase, reminiscent of Fluxus kits, includes a filtration system to extract hormones from urine.

Byron Rich and Mary Magic Tsang • Open Source Estrogen workshop • Squeaky Wheel Media Art Center, Buffalo, 2017 • Workshop participants are shown assembling fluid pumps to push water samples through filter membranes.

Kathy High | Finding Tony | 2016, work in progress | Samples collected inside the home of recently deceased friend and revered Buffalo artist, Tony Conrad. "Finding Tony" playfully addresses issues of bio-surveillance by way of searching for DNA "evidence" of human remains, while commemorating her colleague.

Kathy High • Gut Love • 2017, detail of installation at Esther Klein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA • The Gut Love project, co-develped at Coalesce, arises from questions concerning gut microbiota and the immune system. In this project, High collects fecal samples from families and lovers to identify and reflect upon shared bacterial communities.

Lucie Strecker and Klaus Speiss • working in Coalesce teaching lab, 2017 • The duo are Coalesce 2016–2017 artists-in-residence working on their theatrical project Metabolic Currencies. Here they are working with simple baker's™ yeasts in a bioreactor that allows them measure metabolic activity.

Lucie Strecker and Klaus Speiss, with Ann Liv Young (shown here) • Metabolic Currencies performance @ Screening Room, Center for the Arts, 2017 • This project poses questions of what kinds of exchange systems artists will employ and what holds intrinsic value.

Nicole Clouston working in the Coalesce teaching lab, 2016 • Clouston's project, SOIL, takes soil as its medium, engaging the vast array of microbial life present within it and the ways in which we are connected to it. The soil was collected as the artists circumnavigated Lake Ontario.

Nicole Clouston incubating columns in UB greenhouse • 2016 • Using soil as its medium, this project involves filling a series of acrylic prisms with mud and nutrients. When exposed to light, microbial life in the mud will flourish in varied layers, creating vibrantly colored bands throughout the sculpture.

Günes-Hélène Isitan, • Spill Your Guts, in progress at Coalesce lab, 2018 • The goal of this project is to create sonic instruments that play compositions based upon Isitan's own gut flora. Isitan isolated anaerobic bacterial from her gut by incubating fecal matter on different kinds of agar plates.

Günes-Hélène Isitan, • Spill Your Guts, first prototype • In progress, 2018 • Multiple music boxes play punch-cards created from DNA fingerprints generated from a multitude of bacterial species. The plates used to capture the bacteria, sterilized and fixed, are presented alonside the music box.

"Labor" is an exhibit at the Burchfield Penney Art Center about the scent of human exertion under stressful conditions created by Paul Vanouse, UB art professor and director of Coalesce: Center for Biological Art. Photographer: Douglas Levere

Artists from the Cesar and Lois Collective work with students from PS 192 Buffalo Academy during a workshop presented by Coalesce: Center for Biological Art In Hochstetter Hall in January 2020. Cesar & Lois includes artist-in-residence Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio. The workshop used slime mold to create works of art. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

Gunes-Hélène Isitan working in the Coalesce Biological Art Lab in Hochstetter Hall. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

Department of Art graduate student Darya Warner workin in the Coalesce lab. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

Professor Paul Vanouse, with CAS Art and Coalesce Center for Biological Art, works with a graduate student Darya Warner at an end of the year critique in the Center for the Arts (CFA) gallery space. Photographer: Douglas Levere

Artists from the Cesar and Lois Collective work with students from PS 192 Buffalo Academy during a workshop presented by Coalesce: Center for Biological Art In Hochstetter Hall in January 2020. Cesar & Lois includes artist-in-residence Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio. The workshop used slime mold to create works of art. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

Artists from the Cesar and Lois Collective work with students from PS 192 Buffalo Academy during a workshop presented by Coalesce: Center for Biological Art In Hochstetter Hall in January 2020. Cesar & Lois includes artist-in-residence Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio. The workshop used slime mold to create works of art. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

A weather balloon launch as part of a workshop led by Artists-in-residence Mick Lorusso and Joel Ong. Participants of this workshop deigned and built balloon payloads to capture airborne bacteria.

Pouring liquid nitrogen during a lichen DNA extraction workshop, November 2019, Coalesce Open Housel. The open house was led by Solon Morse and Paul Vanouse. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

Artist-in-Residence Sabrina Merayo Nuñez working in the Coalesce Lab. Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

"Labor" is an exhibit at the Burchfield Penney Art Center about the scent of human exertion under stressful conditions created by Paul Vanouse, UB art professor and director of Coalesce: Center for Biological Art. Photographer: Douglas Levere

Iman Person (left), Artist-in-Residence 2018, presenting her work at a Coalesce workshop. With Solon Morse, Coalesce Lab Manager, and Carine Mardorossian, Department of English.

Slime mold growing on oatmeal in the form of letters.

Paper casts of primate skulls, Artists-in-Residence Sun Young and Jack Tseng.

Artist-in-Residence Cesar Baio filming slime mold through a microscope, 2020.

Peter Bush introducing BioArt students to scanning electron microscopy.

BioArt students exploring objects through scanning electron microscopy.

Artist-in-Residence Iman Person presenting her work at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, 2019.

Mushrooms collected for identification during a BioArt nature walk.