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JES FAN Selected Press Jes Fan with Deboleena Roy, “God Is the Microsphere, A conversation on the biochemistry of race and gender”, Art in America, Mar/ Apr 2021 International Review Since 1913 Lorraine O’Grady George W. Bush’s Immigrant Portraits Laurie Anderson $15.95 U.S. p. 28 $15.95 CANADA Mar/Apr 2021 Disability & Dance: Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson, Wired, 2019. AiA_MA_21_COVER_UPC_f.indd 1 2/3/21 11:37 AM the exchange God Is the Microsphere A conversation on the biochemistry of race and gender. Jes Fan with Deboleena Roy I first began working with hormones, decades ago, I noticed that we use all these metaphors to describe their actions. One reproductive technologies lab, for instance, was trying to find a way to insert a sperm into an egg using a laser. That way of approaching the process comes from the language we use to describe female gametes versus male gametes. FAN Right, the sperm is referred to as the aggressor attacking the egg. But in actuality, the egg absorbing the sperm is a more applicable metaphor. Jes Fan ROY And in society, people stereotypically Deboleena Roy THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL MEANINGS JES FAN [Literary scholar] Rachel Lee we ascribe to biological processes fascinate wrote so eloquently about my work in “A the sculptor Jes Fan, as they do biologist and Lattice of Chemicalized Kinship,” her essay feminist scholar Deboleena Roy. Melanin, for that issue. I made Systems II during a for instance—the biochemical that creates residency at Recess Art in Brooklyn. While pigment in skin—can evoke a whole host of there, I had a studio visit with a painter, assumptions and stereotypes; it drastically who mentioned that the pigments he uses affects social identity. Fan, prompting to mix various skin tones are actually very viewers to consider the materiality of race different from the biochemical processes and gender, incorporates biochemicals in our bodies. For instance, painters might directly into his sculptures. His work use cadmium red to paint skin with pinkish demonstrates how humans can modify the hues. But the colors of our actual flesh are presence of substances like testosterone and produced via biochemical pigments called estrogen, and highlights the significant but melanin: eumelanin is brown or black, and overlooked roles of microbes. Roy, in her pheomelanin is orange or red. book Molecular Feminisms: Biology, Becomings, I began thinking about how artists and Life in the Lab (2018), interrogates the typically revert to symbols or abstraction feminist ethics of biological lab work, asking as I became more drawn to the literal. So questions like “should feminists clone?” She I decided that, rather than represent skin, is also on the editorial board of Catalyst, a I’d make melanin: eumelanin in particular. journal of feminist science studies, whose I’m a maker at my core: I have a BFA in Spring 2020 issue featured a cover article on glass from RISD. So questions like “how do I Fan’s work. Below, Fan and Roy discuss the make this?” and “what is it made of?” have possibilities of human collaborations with always driven my practice. When I think microscopic species, as well as the gendered about more precarious matters like race and and racialized language scientists use to gender—I’ve worked with testosterone and describe microorganisms. estrogen as well—those questions become more interesting. In a way, the literal is the Top, illustration of bread mold. The connecting line DEBOLEENA ROY I was so excited when I ultimate abstraction. labeled “st” is a stolon. The group of lines labeled “myc” first encountered your work as the cover are mycelium. for the Catalyst issue on chemical entangle- ROY That resonates with what I’m doing. Above, Jes Fan: Systems II (detail), 2018, composite ments. I’d love to hear your perspective on My PhD is in molecular biology and resin, glass, melanin, estradiol, depo-testosterone, the piece we chose, Systems II. reproductive neuroendocrinology. When silicone, wood, 52 by 25 by 20 inches. Courtesy Morphart/Adobe Stock; Bottom: the artist and Empty Gallery Illustrations by Scott Chambers; Top: 16 March/April 2021 think of the feminine as docile and the masculine as active. So, how did you make the melanin? FAN I worked with a for-hire lab called Brooklyn Bio. I approached them with my residency budget and told them I wanted to make melanin, then incorporate it into my sculpture. So we genetically modified E. coli— and I was adamant about using E. coli instead of the other option, yeast. Living in Hong Kong under British colonial rule, and also living in the US for ten years now, I’ve observed how racial fear often runs parallel to our fears of microbial contaminations. For instance, one reason why the most expensive real estate in Hong Kong is situated at The Peak is because, during the bubonic plague, the governor reserved residence above a certain altitude for the English. There was a theory that the higher the altitude, the more difficult it would be for germs to travel. And if you look at Jim Crow laws, you again see racial fears running parallel to hygienic fears—especially those around segregating bodies of water. I made Systems II in 2018, and it’s interesting to see the observations I made then ring so true today, as the pandemic takes hold of the world. Mid-March, when the lockdowns began in New York, I was actually on a plane! I was flying back from the Sydney Biennial, and some other passengers sprayed hand sanitizer at me and my [Chinese] family . ROY That’s awful. FAN I know. As someone who’s gone through SARS, I’m very cognizant that one reason why Western scientists did not advocate wearing face masks in the Jes Fan: Systems II, 2018, composite resin, glass, melanin, estradiol, depo-testosterone, silicone, wood, beginning has a lot to do with this often 52 by 25 by 20 inches. subconscious public imaginary that white bodies are pure, that white bodies are not capable of being contaminants: they can biology and biotech places great emphasis arguing with my father about this recently. only be contaminated. on writing, transcription, translation: it’s all I told him about New Materialist thinkers about taking a portion of the DNA code and ROY It’s a false sense of immunological who show us how insignificant we are in the re-creating it. That’s how we got synthetic superiority. world. But he argued, “So what? A rock has biology and CRISPR technologies [for editing no human rights.” What do you say to these FAN Exactly. I wanted Systems II to convey genes]. Feminist science studies and New kinds of rebuttals? the way that we are entangled with one Materialist thinkers have insisted that we ROY You could look at the world through another and with nonhuman beings, like should value what bacteria do as writing, on a rights framework: certain people and E. coli. I give these bacteria credit as the par with what humans do. But my question certain beings get to fit into that framework. master artists of that work. I’ve worked is, what are they writing? I avoid arguing what has rights and what as a fabricator for other artists, so I react FAN Right. And your point isn’t that their doesn’t have rights. I just say, that’s not the strongly against the art market’s insistence content can be deciphered. But if language framework that I’m working with. Rather, on the notion of the heroic, singular artist. is the materialization of thought or energy I’m trying to think about different types of You wrote about something similar in the into form. I think bacteria are doing the encounters with beings around me. chapter of Molecular Feminisms called “Sex same thing. I’m a huge advocate of the idea For instance, [Indian biologist] Jagadish Lives of Bacteria.” that all matter has life. But that idea also Chandra Bose did experiments trying to ROY The question driving me for that makes me hesitate. When we say all things find out whether plants were sentient. chapter was, do bacteria write poetry? have life, in a sense, we’re diminishing When people told him that he should be And if so, will we ever know? I know the some sectors of human life, such as Black patenting his work, he said, nature is not Courtesy the artist and Empty Gallery question is really out there. But molecular and brown lives in the US right now. I was for me to patent. Rights, ownership, and 17 AiA_MARCH_APRIL21_FOB_THE_EXCHANGE_f.indd 17 2/3/21 11:02 AM the exchange Chinese antiquities—especially Scholar Rocks or jade objects that are set on elaborate, ornamental wooden bases—are a huge source of inspiration for me. And I come from a family of manufacturers: my dad ran a toy factory, and my mother and my grandfather ran tapestry factories and made doilies. So I think a lot about touch, and changing the hierarchy of our senses. Touch can be a way of knowing: intelligence isn’t expressed only in language. ROY You’re talking about glass, and I’m talking about grass! The idea of knowing from below is central to my book. Stolons are smart, and we have a lot to learn from them. To me, that practice of holding the cells is a stolonic practice. FAN Thank you. I like that reading. Jes Fan: Testo-Candle, 2017, beeswax, candle wick, depo-testosterone, 4 by 5 by 6 inches.

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