Bioart Society's values were first established with the formation of the association in 2008 and are part of our legal framework. Revisiting our values is an important aspect of our work to ensure we remain relevant and respond to the changing landscape of contemporary art, culture and society at large. In Bioart Society's spring meeting in 2023, Kemê Pellicer facilitated a workshop for Bioart Society members, board members and staff in which we reflected on the organisational values of the Society and reframed them with the aim to clarify and communicate their meaning more effectively across the association. The values listed below are result of this workshop and will inform our purpose and vision for the future.

Values of the association

Openness: We want Bioart Society, and the wider field of art and science, to be inclusive and supportive of a plurality of practices, perspectives and practitioners. We value curiosity and openness to working with processes and concepts that challenge and change how we know the world. We believe that embracing difference and diversity is the route towards a more socially and ecologically just world.

Artistic and scientific responsibility: Bioart Society promotes an ethics of responsibility within artistic and scientific practices that directly and indirectly interact with life forms. Art & science works with and responds to the world and we value responsible ways of doing so.

Respecting and protecting life: As an extension of response-ability, our work entails respecting and protecting living entities and the non-living contexts and materialities that support multispecies livelihoods. Respecting and protecting life requires complexity and takes into account different socio-cultural contexts and rights

Sustainability: While challenging the myth of “sustaining” in a world in constant motion, Bioart Society is committed to growing in ecologically, economically, socially, and materially conscious ways. We advocate for a liveable arts economy that recognises the value of research as much as production and provides the conditions for long-term development and fair working conditions.

Critical Thinking: One of the cornerstones of Bioart Society’s work is critical thinking. In times of poly-crisis and exacerbated systemic oppression, we believe art & science plays a pivotal role in problematizing, raising questions and creating awareness on the political and ethical dimensions of life/living.

Expertise: Bioart Society values expertise and professionalism, asserting that everyone is an expert of their own knowledge and experience. With an emphasis on interdisciplinary research and practice, Bioart Society curates situations and conditions for different forms of expertise and knowledge to meet outside the hierarchies of traditional Western epistemologies. Our role as an association is to foster opportunities for professional artists and researchers and to further the field of arts & science.

Community and collectivity: Working with art & science and matters of life/livability can be heavy work, so creating space for community and conviviality is vital. Cultivating support structures and networks of solidarity to come together to share research, practices, knowledge and experiences in accessible, social and joyful ways is a core value in Bioart Society.