This unique opportunity is open to scholars and creative practitioners who critically and creatively deploy bioart and biodesign as decolonial praxis to reshape current and future ecologies from Africanised perspectives. Given the lack of opportunities for bioart and biodesign in South Africa, this residency offers an exciting opportunity for scholars and practitioners to engage with alternative forms of collaborative praxis; experimental ways of working with biomatter and biomaterials; unconventional methodologies, practice-led research and indigenous forms of knowledge which foreground ecocentrism.

While candidates conducting theoretical research are encouraged to apply, preference is given to those who integrate practice and theory, to produce both textual and creative research outputs. Successful candidates’ research should fall under one or more BA + DA’s seven inter-related focus areas:

• Microbial ecologies. Contemporary art and design research that interfaces with microbiology, using microbes as material and content to generate creative outputs.
• Reparative/precarious ecologies. Ecological practices related to local and global environmental concerns, including ecological systems-restoration, socially engaged, activist and community-based interventions aimed at achieving climate justice.
• Botanical ecologies. Innovative research approaches using plant science and plant matter to foster inter-relational, multi-species and symbiotic relationships between humans and the botanical world.
• Biomedical ecologies. Draws on the creative and intellectual strengths of diverse disciplines across the arts, humanities and medical sciences to shift westernized powers and politics of disease.
• Material ecologies. Incorporates nature-centric and living design, where biomatter and ecosystems are essential components in the production of new, synthesized design forms.
• Queer ecologies. Combines bioart and biodesign with queer theory and ecology to shift paradigms away from heteronormative ways of understanding sexuality and gender in relation to living and non/living organisms.
• Afrofuturist ecologies. Linked to bioart and design enable decolonial practice by centering indigenous knowledge systems, technological

• The candidate must have obtained their doctoral qualification within the last five years from when the University makes a fellowship offer. Should the doctoral degree certificate not be available yet, a formal letter from the previous university confirming completion of the degree is required.
• The candidate must not have exceeded the five-year limit permissible for a PDRF (i.e. they may not have completed five or more years as a PDRF, neither at UJ or elsewhere).
• The doctoral qualification must be in a field related to one or more of BA + DA’s focus areas.
• Doctoral qualifications obtained outside of South Africa must meet the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) (NQF10).
  Evidence of strong scholarly and creative performance.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• This fellowship is a full-time position.
• While ideal candidate should be Johannesburg-based, this is not an absolute requirement.
• While international candidates may apply, preference is given to South African citizens or those from the African continent.
• The PDRF may not hold a full-time or part-time job, or any other fellowships concurrently.

SOURCES CITED

[i] Catts, O. & Zurr, I. 2008. The Ethics of Experiential Engagement with the Manipulation of Life, in Tactical Biopolitics, art, activism, and technoscience, edited by B Da Costa, & Philip, K. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Leonardo:125-142.

[ii] Radomska, M. 2016. ‘Uncontainable Life. A Biophilosophy of Bioart’. PhD thesis submitted to Linköping Studies in Arts and Science, No. 666, Department of Thematic Studies – Gender Studies:35.