From Resins to Melanin - Material Conditions and the Image

As the artist-in-residence at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Kim collaborated with scientist Sam Myers to create image-based works that relied on a living micro-organism and the subjection of art materials to laboratory procedures such as sterilization. The artist will share her thought process and images of prior works as context for her newest project involving a strain of E. Coli that has been genetically modified to produce melanin, the main source of pigmentation in humans and animals. What images are actually made of, as opposed to what they depict, often becomes passive information during the process of image consumption. By describing the evolution of her process in the studio, and her approach to materials as technologies with specific strengths and limitations, Kim will show works where her materials assert themselves within the image. With a long interest in the documentary authority of the photograph, she will share earlier experiments with aluminum foil that led to the development of a process combining silicone rubber molds, resin casts and oil painting, and how her use of melanin continues to create new material conditions for her imagery.