The Synthetic Sacred
About the project
The Synthetic Sacred is an art-research initiative that explores the pathways for ecological restoration amidst hybridity through cutting-edge art, technology, and science. The notion of the ‘Synthetic Sacred’ is both a provocation and an attempt to forge sustainable narratives and practices. Weaving together post-human and Indigenous knowledge systems, it explores the sacred as a means to heal fractured relations with nature and resist capitalist-colonialist extraction. It provides the ‘sacred’ as a framework to guide and detoxify our synthetic creations, aiming to shift the compass of development away from the extraction and exploitation of life and towards restoration, kinship, and flourishing.
This initiative was curated by Lucy Rose Sollitt and supported by Goethe-Institut London.
Responsibilities: Editorial lead, budget management, communications, digital content production, and strategy
Working closely with the curator and our in-house art programme manager, and freelance graphic designers, I provided editorial guidance on the development of all digital content, tailoring cross-platform copy and visual materials in line with the Goethe-Institut’s editorial guidelines, and translating English-language content into German.
Once all cross-platform materials were signed off, I utilised my CMS expertise to build and update The Synthetic Sacred webpage. I was also responsible for managing the editorial budget of the project, which comprised budget planning and coordinating contracts and payments for commissioned content.
As the manager, producer, and host of the Talking Culture podcast, I worked alongside the project’s curator to craft two special project episodes. My podcast production tasks comprised developing episode content and interview questions, synthesising audio content with Hindenburg and Riverside FM, crafting visual materials and audio-snippet Reels in Canva and Headliner, transcribing Reels and episodes, as well as running digital marketing initiatives, such as boosting posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
Production Portfolio
Web content
Podcast content
In 2024, I managed, hosted, and produced two special editions of the Talking Culture podcast, envisioned to introduce audiences to key technical themes of The Synthetic Sacred, such as bio-digital convergence and the emergence of synthetic life, in a more inclusive and accessible format. Curated by Lucy Rose Sollitt, the conversations explored questions of control, harmony, and the shifting relationships between synthetic and natural forms of life, providing listeners with a thought-provoking journey into the complexities of these evolving paradigms.
Guests included contemporary conceptual artists Agnieszka Kurant and Anicka Yi, biologists Johannes Vogel and Michael Levin, and Mohawk scholar Keith Williams.
Talking Culture #19 - Synthetic Life: A future ‘Natural History’?
What becomes of nature when life is synthetic, and what role can biotechnology play in ecological restoration? In this episode, we explored how emerging biotechnologies — from developing Xenobots for regenerative medicine to the Internet of Animals (IoA), which utilises sensor data and artificial intelligence (AI) to create early warning systems for natural disasters — are reshaping life.
Director General of Berlin’s Natural History Museum Johannes Vogel, conceptual artist Agnieszka Kurant, and Professor of Biology at Tufts University Michael Levin, were invited to draw on their own research to examine how these technological developments manipulate biological life and the potential consequences for all planetary life.
Together, we reflected on how synthetic creations can highlight the workings of nature, challenge outdated species categories, and support environmental restoration. The discussion illuminated both risks and possibilities, raising pressing ethical questions about who, or what, will control life when nature itself becomes bionic.
Talking Culture #20 - Biotechnologies and the Web of Life
Might reframing biotechnologies in the context of the sacred web of life help guide innovation towards the creation and restoration of flourishing ecologies? This episode explored how, when approached solely within a modern paradigm, biotechnologies tend towards extraction, alienation, and entrapment, overlooking the knowledge embedded in many indigenous cosmologies, where each being fulfils its purpose within a wider ecology.
We invited conceptual artist Anicka Yi, Mohawk scholar Keith Williams, and researcher and cultural programmer Lucy Rose Sollitt to draw on their artistic, ecological, and policy perspectives to examine how biotechnology might be reimagined through indigenous teachings, cultural codes, and moral frameworks.
Together, we considered whether the emergence of synthetic life, from lab-grown psychedelic mushrooms to 3D-printed tissues, further abstracts us from nature, or whether it might contribute to restoring fractured relations with it. The discussion illuminated how synthetic creations can be entangled within place, relation, and obligation, raising pressing ethical questions about how biotechnology can support life in harmony with the web of creation.