Gate 27 hosts bio-art project

ISTANBUL

Gate 27, an international residency program that aims to facilitate the research and production processes of different practices and to provide a platform for interdisciplinary interaction, is hosting Esin Aykanat Avcı, who works in the field of bio-art, in its Yeniköy venue.

In her project, based on an article published as part of a scientific project developed to produce organs for humans (Crossing kingdoms: Using decellularized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffolds), Avcı focuses on positioning plant leaves as a new body for humans. With a biochemist, she decellularizes the leaves by keeping them in a special solution in the laboratory and turns them into a “house” that can be used in new organ development studies.

“I was excited to perform the procedures mentioned in the article, as leaf veins closely resemble veins in the human body. Human beings push the limits of technology for their own future and spend the world’s energy and material resources, but they can find the solution in a spinach leaf, in nature itself,” she says.

During her studies at Gate 27, Avcı also benefited from the biology laboratories at Sabancı University. With the support of Nur Mustafaoğlu, a faculty member of the Molecular Biology, Genetics and Bioengineering Department, the artist spent a few days in the biology laboratories of the university.