Coalesce Center for Biological Art.

Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts is a hybrid studio laboratory facility dedicated to enabling hands-on creative engagement with the tools and technologies of the life sciences.

Apply for Residency

Coalesce residency applications for the 2024-2025 academic year are due June 18, 2024. Questions may be directed to Paul Vanouse.

Coalesce connects disciplines

It is a place where artists, designers and architects actively learn, use and create, using life sciences technologies as their medium; scientists explore new forms or broader cultural meanings of their work; and philosophers, writers and social scientists interact in a tangible way with the processes of the life sciences. However, it is a place where such disciplinary labels are challenged and hybrid creative practices are incubated. 

Coalesce responds to the grand challenge

From medicine to the environment, from stem cells to microbes, from genes to biomes, much of the US public is ill prepared to evaluate the most complex questions, challenges and issues facing our society today. “What does it mean to design a living organism?” “What aspects of such an organism could be called an invention… or an artwork?” “How do we presently define life?” Coalesce will complement UB’s expertise in the life sciences by addressing questions and issues vital to public understanding and participation, but beyond the analytical constraints of most disciplines.

Coalesce is part of GEM

Coalesce is a major facet of GEM, establishing a dedicated studio laboratory for biological art and emerging practices in the arts, as well as graduate positions, interdisciplinary coursework, residency opportunities, DIY workshops and exhibitions.

This hybrid facility will encourage creative engagement, becoming a place where:

  • artists, designers and architects actively learn use and create, using life sciences technologies as their medium;
  • scientists explore broader cultural meanings of their work; and 
  • philosophers, writers and social scientists interact in a tangible way with the processes of the life sciences.
BIOART IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

 Report from the artist-researchers in residence 

COALESCE DISPERSE

Reports from the Lab

Art and Science in a global pandemic. Join us in this series of online talks by artists in residence and the staff at Coalesce, FRIDAY, APRIL 24th 12–1:15 PM EST

Coalesce Center for Biological Art

308 Hochstetter Hall | UB North Campus | 716-645-9121