Date: 25 June 2025
Location: building R of the University of Antwerp (Rodestraat 14, 2000 Antwerpen), room info TBA. Online attendance (livestream) will also be possible.
Timing: 12h00 - 14h30. A sandwich lunch will be provided.
Language: English
Art and death have an intimate relationship. Memento mori paintings were popular in the 17th century but also modern painters and contemporary visual artists explore the potential of art as a way of dealing with our own mortality or the death of others. Within the Death Care project we want to make death a topic of research but also of conversation. It is not uncommon nowadays for someone to have never seen a dead body. That used to be different. Can art help in making death visible without traumatizing? Could Death Studies as a field benefit from artistic research methods? How can researchers and artists collaborate in studying, discussing and communicating the legal, philosophical, sociological and anthropological meaning of death? These questions are the topic of a round table and a ritual with artists, scientists and the audience.
The lunch event will start with a presentation by Anna Suwalowska entitled Death in the Mind's Eye.
It will be followed by three responses and a ritual.
Lunch with sandwiches is provided.
Find out more about our speakers below.
Anna Suwalowska
Anna Suwalowska is a London-based Polish artist. She holds an M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London (2013) and a B.A. from Camberwell College of Arts (2011), alongside a Diploma in Dental Technology.
In her paintings she explores the intersections of psychology, memory, and perception, studying how the subconscious mind constructs reality. Influenced by automatism and free association, her paintings uncover the underlying landscapes of thoughts and emotions. By drawing from museum artifacts and symbolism she integrates mythical narratives into her work and creates a contemporary reality shaped by the Mind’s Eye. Rooted in themes of death, mental health, and the subconscious, her work analyses cultural taboos surrounding autopsy and the materiality of the body, offering a deeper examination of the human condition.
Anna has contributed to academic and artistic discourse through collaborations with institutions such as the University of Oxford, the University of Exeter, and the University of Cape Town. She is the founder of BEYOND PHYSICAL FORM, a platform at the intersection of art, science, and ethics that examines the important questions surrounding death, the treatment of the dead, and the beliefs that shape our understanding of the mind, body, and spirit. Through creative and academic collaborations, most recently in partnership with Death Care project, University of Antwerp she engages the public in these critical conversations.
Her solo exhibition Beyond the Body: A Portrait of Autopsy (2020–2023) was presented in academic and medical institutions across the UK, Belgium, Singapore, and South Africa. The project received recognition from the University of Oxford and was selected by the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health, in partnership with the WHO, to be shown at the UN City in Copenhagen to highlight the role of cultural narratives in shaping health outcomes.
Anna has been invited to lecture, run seminars, and lead workshops in both community and institutional settings. Most recently, she served as Artistic Director of Homage to the Departed (2023–2024), a curatorial and artistic project at the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, which explored the ethics of displaying human remains. This culminated in exhibitions at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Baltimore, and the Duggan-Cronin Gallery, Kimberley (2024).
Her work has been showcased in numerous international exhibitions and residencies, including in Taiwan, Norway, and Hong Kong. She is also the co-curator of Dreamscapes, a group exhibition celebrating contemporary surrealism.
IG: @anna_suwalowska
Anaïs Chabeur
Anaïs Chabeur is an artist based in Brussels. She graduated from La Cambre (Brussels) in 2016 and HISK (Ghent) in 2018. Through films, installations and participative offerings she crafts poetic and sensorial atmospheres. Invitations to inhabit time consciously. Anaïs explores ways to recover our lost familiarity with death and the gestures of care that resist its disappearance from modern western society. Since 2022, she has been a palliative care volunteer, offering presence and massages to terminally ill patients. For the period 2024 - 2026, Anaïs is a researcher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp with her project "Visions for Crossing" focusing on the washing of the dead. Her work has been shown in collective exhibitions in institutions such as S.M.A.K. (Ghent), De Singel (Antwerp), Wiels (Brussels), CIAP (Hasselt). And solo shows at Botanique, V2Vingt and Atelier Arthur Rogiers (Brussels). She recently performed at Trinity College (Dublin) and Stadtgalerie (Saarbrücken).
Christina Stadlbauer
* 29. January 1970
[researcher / artist] : [AT, FIN, BE]
Christina is an artist / scientist focused on other-than-human life forms (plants, animals, bacteria, etc). In her work, she attempts to re-negotiate the relations we humans have with our environment.
She instigated long term initiatives, e.g. “Melliferopolis – Bees in urban environments” and “Institute for Relocation of Biodiversity”. These projects are concerned with loss of diversity & habitats and propose poetic, speculative or absurd solutions to take other-than-humans into consideration. The work takes form as tangible objects, public installations, performances, ephemeral interventions. She is also interested in rituals and prognostication and investigates new forms of oracles and divination objects.
Via the Institute for Relocation, she engaged deeply with the mollusk Pinna nobilis, endemic in the Mediterranean Sea and threatened with extinction, in the region of the Mar Menor. This involvement resulted in video works (2018), performances and exhibitions (2019), as well as an article in the journal for performance research (2020).
Currently, Christina’s work pivots also around cracks and Kin Tsugi - the old Japanese craft of mending ceramics with gold. She is intrigued by the philosophy of this transformative repair, and applies the principle to other materials, and - in a more conceptual way - for mending broken places, communities and situations in every day life. With the trans-disciplinary project Bacto-Healing, she takes the concept into the microbiology lab where “healing” with the help of mycelium and bacteria is explored. This work was started in the microbiology lab Biofilia at Aalto university (Finland) and resulted in a show both in Tokio and in Helsinki (Narratives of Imperfection, 2019).
Christina is a post-doctoral researcher at Centre for Synthetic Biology, GentUniversity and Department for Bioethics @ University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Christina has a PhD in Chemistry and has graduated from Apass, a post master program for advanced performance and artistic research in Brussels, Belgium.
More on http://christallinarox.wordpress.com
christina.stadlbauer@gmail.com
Bartaku Vandeput
Bartaku Art_Research in Bio- and energy art.
I am an artist-researcher living and working in Belgium and Finland, practicing under the name Bartaku. With an MSc in Social Sciences (KULeuven, 1994) and a Doctor of Arts (Aalto University, 2021), my work is situated in the realms of energy, bioart, and consciousness studies.
Currently, I hold a postdoc-senior fellowship (FWO) at the University of Antwerp's Department of Philosophy, Centre for Ethics, with the MicroTuning project; a relational inquiry into the interconnections between the microbial worlds in air, lungs & cooling towers of nuclear power plants. This research also involves partnerships with Aalto University's New Energies Technology group, Ghent University's Department of Biotechnology, and Hasselt University's X-LAB.
Since 2003, my practice has evolved from drumming to energy- and bioart, addressing pressing contemporary issues and fostering critical debate. Over the last 2 decades through many cross-disciplinary and transcontextual collaborations, I've developed a holistic, transversal approach that creates playfields between scientists, artists, Any`thing´.
Key Projects and Collaborations
Latvian Plantation Entanglement A decade-long engagement culminating in practice-based doctoral studies at Aalto University's School of Art, Design and Architecture, resulting in a 2021 monograph.
Temporary Photoelectric Digestopians (tPED) This renowned public lab series features edible solar cells tested on sun-directed tongues, transforming light, energy, and emotion. The project is mentioned in the 2021 Routledge book 'A History of Solar Power Art and Design'.
AAMO Research Group Founded in 2017, this art-science collective deepens transdisciplinary work, with notable projects like 'Blck Vlvt' - a plant-colored glass solar cell mosaic inspired by J.M.W. Turner's 'Snowstorm' painting.
Artistic Approach
My work explores relationships between light, electrical energy, plants, and microbes, utilizing various media including ceramics, solar cells, sound, and language. Through workshops, exhibitions, interventions, and lectures, I connect scientists, artists, designers, technology, and the more-than-human world.
As an artist-in-residence, I've participated in numerous programs across art, design, craft, and scientific contexts in Northwest Europe, the Baltic region, Southern Mexico, Peru, and Northeast India.
Affiliations and Memberships
- Founding member: HangarOh, Wating and Hearing Group, r-Ohm
- Member: Finnish Bioart Society, Eco-and Bioart Lab