Prof Oron Catts
BA Design with First Class Honours; MA Visual Arts Cum Laude, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia.
Catts is an artist, researcher, designer and curator, and a world-renowned expert in the field of bioart and design. He was recently appointed Academic Lead and Director of the Institute of Advanced studies at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Prior to this appointment, Catts was the Director of SymbioticA – The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Human Sciences at UWA, which he founded in 2000. SymbioticA was the first research laboratory of its kind, enabling practitioners to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department. The Centre enabled a pioneering means of creative practice, where artists and designers use the tools and technologies of science (specifically, biotechnology) to explore the creative possibilities of art-science collaborations. Under Catts’s leadership, SymbioticA won the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) and the Western Australia Premier Science Award (2008). In 2024, SymbioticA transitioned out of UWA to become and independent research institute.
Together with Ionat Zurr, Catts founded the formative Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A) in 1996. This project was a groundbreaking endeavour in the then newly emergent field of bioart. From 1996 to date, the TC&A Project has worked internationally to produce artworks and textual publications that focus on the impact of tissue engineering on society. While the TC&A Project is considered a pioneering collaboration in the field of bioart, the impact of Catts’s personal work is also cited as inspiration in diverse areas such as lab-grown food, tissue cultured clothing, semi-living sculptures, new materials, textiles, design and architecture. Catt’s work is considered as a precursor to the cellular agriculture and biofabrication industry.
Catts was a Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School’s Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, housed in the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (USA) from 2000-2001; a Visiting Scholar at the Dept. of Art and Art History, Stanford University; a Visiting Professor of Design Interaction (2009-2012) and Professor at Large in Contestable Design (2015-2017) at the Royal College of Arts, London (UK). In 2012-2013 he set up the Biofilia art lab – a dedicated laboratory for biological art and design – at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.