Collection: Jennifer Willet

Dr. Jennifer Willet is the Director of INCUBATOR Lab and a Canada Research Chair in Art, Science and Ecology at the University of Windsor. She is also a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. Willet is an internationally recognized artist and curator in the emerging field of BioArt. Her research resides at the intersection of art and science, and explores notions of representation, the body, ecologies, and interspecies interrelations in the biotechnological field. She engages in performance, installation, photography and sculpture based artistic practices, community arts and social practice, and philosophy of science, media studies, science and technology studies, combined with protocols and life forms from the biological sciences.

She taught in Studio Arts at Concordia University (2000-2007) and at the Art and Genomics Centre at the University of Leiden (2008) in the Netherlands, and now works as an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Arts, at The University of Windsor. In 2009 she opened the first biological art lab in Canada, called INCUBATOR: Hybrid Laboratory at the Intersection of Art, Science, and Ecology. In January 2018 INCUBATOR Lab launched a new custom-built BSL2 facility that is both a functional biotech laboratory and a multi-media theatre and exhibition venue. This internationally unique facility includes a glass wall opening to a large atrium, theatrical lighting, sound and video capabilities, to enable live and online viewing of biotechnology/artworks and performances. In 2020 Willet will launch a parallel space INCUBATOR Studio, an artist studio, community engagement hub and BSL1 bioart facility in a downtown storefront in Windsor.