Creative Resident

Curated by Ginkgo Bioworks and Faber Futures, the Ginkgo Creative Residency is an experimental platform for creative thinkers to work at the intersection of their creative discipline and synthetic biology for three months.

At Ginkgo, we explore what synthetic biology can do and what worlds it can bring about. By reading and writing DNA, we can reimagine the possibilities of living things, from bacteria that target diseases in your gut, to more sustainable foods, to the creation of bio-based materials. But solving the world’s greatest problems goes far beyond the lab. We believe that multidisciplinary thinking has the power to create new opportunities for synthetic biology and to catalyze crucial conversations about our shared futures on this planet. That’s why we’re opening up our foundry to collaboration with creative thinkers—from artists, to poets, to coders, to educators, and more—to broaden our visions of what could be possible.

In our 6th year of the residency, we invite submissions that engage with synthetic biology through PLAY. Can a playful application build new relations between humans and nature that cultivate comfort, joy, and dignity? Whether your practice centers art, design, performance and/or community engagement, we invite you to submit a project proposal for a project based in our labs that engages with this years’ theme on PLAY. You’re someone who is able to bring a creative and critical lens to the brief, has experience building relationships and collaborating outside of your field, and is able to adapt in a new setting.