Shifting Perspectives

Reimagining life through screendance and synthetic biology

Shifting Perspectives is an experimental screendance inspired by Moving the Needle, a dialogue between synthetic biologists Sarah Richardson and Tom Knight, whose contrasting views on microbial life sparked an interdisciplinary exploration.

Drawing on feminist post-humanist perspectives, the film brings art and science into conversation, expanding notions of agency, embodiment, and relationality. Blending screendance, synthetic biology, and embodied practice, it reimagines life beyond human perspectives and traverses the boundaries between human, nonhuman, and microbial worlds.

Developed by Sarah Pini in collaboration with Jestin George and Melissa Ramos during their Responsive Research Residency at Critical Path, Sydney (April–May 2020).

Premiered on 15 August 2020 at Australian National Science Week.

CHOREOGRAPHIC HACK LAB

Hacking the Anthropocene

Invited artist to the Choreographic Hack Lab, a one-week laboratory organised by Critical Path and Strange Attractor in partnership with Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, bringing together choreographers and practitioners from other disciplines to explore creative responses to the Anthropocene.

The lab fostered experimentation across practice boundaries, generating new ways of working while engaging the public through talks, presentations, and a publication that shares the process and outcomes.

Funded by City of Sydney, Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW supported by Woollahra Council.

Moving Perspectives: Biology is Technology

When movement meets microbiology

Moving Perspectives is an interdisciplinary experimental film developed by Sarah Pini and Jestin George during the Choreographic Hack Lab at Critical Path and Sydney Festival 2019.

This video installation challenges the binary concepts of nature and technology, exploring synthetic biology as a living, growing technology that could reshape our relationship with the Anthropocene.

Drawing on feminist post-humanist perspectives, the work reimagines life through movement and visual experimentation, inviting audiences to reconsider the Anthropocene from multiple viewpoints.

Moving Perspectives features in Anthroposphere: The Oxford Climate Review

Talking Dance: Hacking the Anthropocene

Synthetic Organisms: Performing Promise and Doubt

Invited speaker at Talking Dance: Hacking the Anthropocene presented a public sharing of ideas from the Choreographic Hack Lab, a week-long laboratory where five choreographers and five specialists from other disciplines explored the Anthropocene.

Together, we reflected on futures shaped by human and non-human entanglements, deep time, and posthuman perspectives, asking: how can dance help us imagine new ways of living in the world?

event organised by Critical Path and Sydney Festival at Kings Cinema, MAAS Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, January 2019.

Making Space

Bodies, Space and the Anthropocene

Invited speaker at Bodies, Space and the Anthropocene, an event building on Talking Dance: Hacking the Anthropocene (Sydney Festival 2019).

Presented in partnership with the MAAS Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, the event brought together choreographers and specialists from diverse fields including Astrida Neimanis, Bek Conroy and Jodie McNeilly-Renaudie, to reflect on the process of making work in artist-non-artist collaborations and ways of thinking-through-practice in the Anthropocene.