NIKI SPEROU is a South Australian artist with a longstanding engagement within the nexus between art, science and culture. Since 2006 she has been the resident artist at the Department of Medical Biotechnology, Flinders University.  Her interest in contemporary  innovations in technology, the body and her cultural background have led her to draw parallels between biotechnology and ancient Greek cultural paradigms. For Sperou these connections emerge in chimerical forms and concepts.

MESH: Interspecies Empathy

Uncertainty evokes new questions, viewpoints, and futures. Initially, I was concerned with the impact of technology upon ‘what it means to be human’ but this interest has evolved toward expanded entanglements and chimeric possibilities; post-human, multispecies, queer, repurposed, interdisciplinary, eco-techno and postcolonial; raising interrogations of relationships and speaking for others.

A Partnership for Uncertain Times features four exceptional South Australian artists working at the intersections of art, science and technology:

BRAD DARKSON, DEIRDRE FEENEY, NIKI SPEROU, CATHERINE TRUMAN

THE EXHIBITION
A Partnership for Uncertain Times

Newmarch Gallery, 16 June to 15 July, 2023
View the online exhibition catalogue here

The Arts South Australia funded collaboration between UniSA and ANAT has commissioned the featured artists to research and develop innovative and experimental artworks engaging with science and technology. The R&D (research and development) nature of the project places emphasis on courageous experimental development over ‘perfecting’ finished artworks.

“When you work collaboratively, people have different agendas, they have different problems they want to solve. That always leads to an uncertain creation.

One thing I can tell you is that scientists find working with artists extremely interesting, because they first write up a proposal and then they have to prove or disprove this proposal. With open-ended creative work, we don’t work like that. We can change paths as different ideas come into the mix and we can go to unknown places and I think that’s wonderful”

Niki Sperou

A Partnership for Uncertain Times is an Arts South Australia funded collaboration between UniSA (University of South Australia) and ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology).