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.
Project responsibilities:
Budget management, communications and digital content production
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 artists Agnieszka Kurant and Anicka Yi, biologists Johannes Vogel and Michael Levin, and Mohawk scholar Keith Williams.
Episode 19 - Synthetic Life: A future ‘Natural History’?
The creations of biodigital convergence are redefining what constitutes life, just as a mass extinction is taking place. Emerging synthetic life includes biological robots, digitally controlled dragonflies, and internet-connected implants in humans. What future natural history is being created today? The developments raise complex philosophical, societal and ecological questions about the kind of future present biotechnologies are ushering in.
In this episode of Talking Culture, we explore what becomes of nature when life is synthetic and ask what role biotech can play in ecological restoration.
Podcast guests
Agnieszka Kurant is a conceptual artist whose work investigates collective and nonhuman intelligences and the exploitations inherent in digital surveillance capitalism. She has exhibited internationally at institutions including MoMA, the Pompidou, and the Guggenheim, co-represented Poland at the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2010), and is the recipient of awards including the LACMA A+T Prize (2020) and Google AMI Award (2021). Her forthcoming projects include commissions for the Pompidou and Bourse de Commerce in Paris (2024).
Johannes Vogel is the director general of Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde and Professor of Biodiversity and Science Dialogue at Humboldt University. For eight years, he led the botany department at the Natural History Museum in London. Since relocating to Germany in 2012, he has managed Berlin’s 30 million-strong collection and promoted it as a ‘political museum’ engaged in dialogue on science, democracy, and nature. He is also President of the European Citizen Science Association and advises the European Commission and German government on science policy.
Michael Levin is a professor of biology at Tufts University, an associate faculty at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, and director of Tufts’ Allen Discovery Center. With over 400 peer-reviewed publications, his research explores information processing in living systems, spanning developmental biology, regeneration, synthetic bioengineering, and philosophy of mind. His group’s work has applications in fields from birth defects and cancer to AI and robotics.
Episode 20 - Biotechnologies and the Web of Life
Might reframing biotechnologies in the context of the sacred web of life be useful in guiding innovation towards the creation and restoration of flourishing and generative ecologies? When formulated within the modern paradigm, the products of biotech tend towards the extraction, alienation and entrapment of life, both natural and synthetic.
In this episode of Talking Culture, we considered biotechnologies within the context of indigenous cosmologies.
Podcast guests
Anicka Yi is a Korean-American conceptual artist whose work explores the intersections of biology, politics, and perception. Known for using scent, living organisms, and perishable materials, Yi has exhibited internationally at Tate Modern, the Guggenheim, and the Venice Biennale, and was awarded the Hugo Boss Prize (2016) and the Tate Turbine Hall Hyundai Commission (2020).
Keith Williams is an assistant professor of educational studies at Athabasca University. His research focuses on building good relations with more-than-human kin in Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia), drawing on Haudenosaunee teachings, posthuman philosophy, and lived experience.
Lucy Rose Sollitt is a researcher and cultural programmer specialising in art, technology, and sustainable futures. She has worked with organisations including Serpentine Galleries and FACT, and previously led on creative media at Arts Council England and digital innovation at DCMS. Based at Somerset House, she regularly writes, lectures, and advises on art and innovation policy.