International residency · Shenzhen
Artists and researchers work with living systems inside Cross-Media Lab and Shenzhen's synthetic biology research environment.
Project-based duration
Shenzhen, China
Lab immersion
Expressions of interest open
Cross-Media Lab · Institute of Synthetic Biology (iSynBio) · Guangming Science City
What is Syn-Life Arts
Syn-Life Arts begins where engineered life becomes more than a subject or material. Living systems participate in the work, respond to human arrangements, and may change what the work becomes. Their public encounter, care, and consequences remain part of the artistic form.
Gene editing, directed evolution, molecular machines, biofoundries, and AI-assisted biology are moving life into engineering, computation, and manufacturing. Syn-Life Arts brings those choices into public experience before their cultural meanings and responsibilities become settled.
Residency community
The 2026 community brings artists, curators, researchers, and technologists into a shared working environment. Their practices offer different ways of observing life, building systems, and approaching public responsibility.
Biological arts · Curatorial practice · Living materials · Media art · Creative technology · Ecological research
Lab visits · Research exchanges · Material tests · Public talks · Studio research
The iSynBio ecosystem
Cross-Media Lab connects artistic research with the laboratories, automated infrastructure, and biomanufacturing context around iSynBio. Access develops through scientific conversation, feasibility review, and shared responsibility.
Design
genetic and computational research
Build
automated and supervised experimentation
Scale
biomanufacturing and pilot development
An automated, high-throughput environment supporting design, build, test, and learn workflows.
A translation context for process development, pilot-scale work, and manufacturing with biology.
A bridge for artists, scientists, and publics, supporting translation, conversation, and research-led practice.
Residency in practice
Studio thinking moves into laboratories, research meetings, material tests, and public conversation. These field notes show how artistic questions change when they meet the methods and tempos of living systems.
Lolo Ostia and researchers tested blue bacterial pigments on textile samples, bringing colour, fixation, biological behaviour, and exhibition conditions into one material conversation.
A discussion around bacterial evolution opened questions about competition, adaptation, experimental time, and the ways a scientific model can be translated into public experience.
Tomoki Matsumura shared a developing work that joins competitive swimming, microscopic life, and embodied research across radically different biological scales.
A visit to the microalgae research environment introduced the residency community to species that adapt differently to light, nutrients, and shifting environmental conditions.
The residency follows the question rather than a fixed production formula. Each project develops through scientific exchange, artistic research, and practical review.
Meet scientists, visit selected facilities, and learn how a research question is being approached in practice.
Shape an artistic inquiry with the host lab, curatorial team, and the limits of the available materials and methods.
Work through observation, conversation, supervised experiments, prototypes, writing, and studio research.
Consider safety, ethics, maintenance, documentation, and what happens to living materials after public presentation.
Translate the research into an installation, talk, workshop, publication, prototype, or future exhibition proposal.
Program at a glance
Each residency is scoped through conversation. Dates, access, support, and responsibilities are confirmed after the artistic and scientific context has been reviewed.
Duration
The schedule is set after project scope, lab availability, access requirements, and travel planning are reviewed.
Location
Based at Cross-Media Lab within the SIAT and iSynBio research environment in Guangming Science City.
Format
Artists work through visits, conversations, supervised access, studio research, and curatorial dialogue.
Application status
The process begins with an expression of interest, followed by a conversation, feasibility review, and lab matching.
Working language
English is the primary public language, with Chinese support available in the local context.
Support policy
Funding, accommodation, travel, production, and other support are recorded in each residency agreement.
Review the research themes, scientific context, access principles, and residency format.
Share your practice, research question, availability, and the support your proposal may require.
Meet online to discuss the artistic inquiry, working methods, expectations, and constraints.
Review scientific fit, host availability, safety conditions, resources, and possible dates.
Confirm the schedule, support, access conditions, responsibilities, and expected public exchange.
Research themes
These themes help applicants connect artistic questions about living causality, emergence, care, and responsibility with possible scientific conversations. They are invitations, not restrictions.
Life from parts
Investigate what changes when cells are not only observed or modified, but built from molecular components.
Living factories
Explore organisms, enzymes, and automated platforms as material systems for future production.
Matter that grows
Work with the cultural and sensory implications of materials that metabolize, decay, adapt, or self-organize.
Invisible collaborators
Consider microbial communities as ecological, social, and aesthetic actors rather than hidden background life.
Molecular form
Translate folded structures, molecular machines, and designed proteins into spatial, sonic, or narrative forms.
Prediction and imagination
Question how machine learning changes biological discovery, authorship, and the imagination of living systems.
Robotic life design
Look at laboratories as automated infrastructures where protocols, machines, and organisms co-produce knowledge.
Making life public
Develop forms that make responsibility, access, risk, care, and future publics part of the biological conversation.
Lab access and safety
Syn-Life Arts and synthetic biology require careful boundaries. The program welcomes artistic ambition, but every laboratory condition must be reviewed with scientists and safety staff.
Who should apply
No biology degree is required. The strongest fit is a practice that can learn from scientific methods without reducing science to illustration.
What we provide
Dates, funding, accommodation, travel, production support, lab access, and public outcomes are confirmed in writing after feasibility review.
Expression of interest
The process starts with your practice and research proposal, then moves through conversation, feasibility, safety, and lab matching.
FAQ
The residency involves scientific spaces, public institutions, and living systems, so boundaries matter as much as possibilities.
No formal biology degree is required. Strong research motivation, patience with scientific process, and respect for laboratory rules are more important.
Yes. The program is designed as an international residency. Practical details such as travel, visa timing, and invitation letters are reviewed case by case.
The duration is agreed for each residency after the project scope, lab availability, access requirements, and travel plan have been reviewed.
Cross-Media Lab currently accepts expressions of interest. Residency dates are proposed after the initial conversation and confirmed through feasibility and lab matching.
Collectives may apply when one lead applicant is named and the proposed working format is feasible for the lab, housing, and public program.
Possibly, but only after scientific, safety, and feasibility review. Any biological material, organism handling, or wet lab work requires approval and supervision.
Applicants may indicate preferred research themes or labs. Final matching depends on scientific fit, mentor availability, safety, and project feasibility.
Funding and production support are agreed for each residency. The confirmed arrangement is recorded alongside the schedule, access conditions, and project responsibilities.
Travel support is confirmed individually as part of the residency agreement. Applicants should describe their travel needs in the expression of interest.
Living-cost support is confirmed individually as part of the residency agreement. Applicants should include relevant needs in the initial conversation.
Invitation letter support can be considered after selection and residency confirmation. The program cannot guarantee visa outcomes.
Valid outcomes include research, prototypes, public talks, workshops, essays, documentation, and exhibition proposals. The agreed outcome follows the needs of the project.
Artwork ownership and intellectual property questions are discussed case by case before the residency begins, especially when scientific data or lab resources are involved.
No unsupervised biological work is allowed. Safety orientation is mandatory, and sensitive proposals may require biosafety or ethics review.
Contact and residency
Send an expression of interest, browse the iSynBio labs, or begin a conversation with Cross-Media Lab about an artistic research question.
Chenli Liu
Honorary Director
Zhijie Qiu
Honorary Director
Xiao Yi
Executive Director, Bio
Baoyang Chen
Executive Director, Art
Fangxinzi Chen
Creative Manager