In this thesis I examine contemporary interdisciplinary theory and practice in art,
design, citizen science and synthetic biology. I explain the differences between three main
knowledge distinctions of synthetic biology, and identify prominent artists, designers, and
citizen scientists who are creating new modes of labour therein. I locate this research in
Isabelle Stengers’ notion of the Ecology of Practices, which I connect to my own art practice
as a DIY textile crafter. In the DIY Body Project installation, which took place at the Ontario
Science Centre and online at diybody.org, a space is created for the public to generate its own
evolving narrative of what a synthetic body can mean, look like and function as. The
exhibition does this without promoting a specific rhetoric of the body as human, the synthetic
as machine, or the biological as computable as is often seen in biotechnology discourse.

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