The Frankencorn Project
Category: Artist Residency
Date: April-June 2024
Location: Brooklyn and Long Island, NY
Project Components:
1. Genspace Artist in Residence
2. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Collaboration
3. NEW INC Creative Science Dinner 2024
Project Description
The Frankencorn Project merges Teosinte (the wild ancestor of maize), B73 (a widely studied research strain), and traditional Mexican Landrace maizes into a “grafted maize tree.” Developed in collaboration with Dr. Dave Jackson and supported by the AIR Program at Genspace, The Frankencorn Project has unfolded in three distinct phases:
A. Plant Callus Grafting (Genspace Residency)
During a residency at Genspace, the artist worked with callus cultures—a growing mass of unorganized plant cells stimulated by plant hormones. This phase involved experimenting with tissue culture techniques to begin merging maize varieties at a cellular level.
B. Open-Air Pollination (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Building on the work from Genspace, the second phase introduced controlled pollination experiments in an open-air setting. By cultivating different maize lineages side by side, this stage highlighted the flow of genetic traits across borders and natural environments.
C. Creative Science Dinner (NEW INC)
In this final phase of The Frankencorn Project, the artist examines how maize genetic lineages weave and mesh across borders, revealing the co-evolution of corn and humanity. Collaborating with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s research field, a fictional grafted maize tree—a “frankencorn”—is presented, merging Teosinte, B73, and a traditional Mexican Landrace into a single sculptural organism. This grafted herbaria sample symbolizes the convergence of Zea mays lineages and underscores the genetic complexity behind the human-corn co-domestication process. Drawing on Frankenstein’s monster to evoke the fusion of science fiction and agriculture, The Frankencorn Project explores the intertwined nature of maize genetics and our evolving relationship with synthetic biology.
The Frankencorn Project merges Teosinte (the wild ancestor of maize), B73 (a widely studied research strain), and traditional Mexican Landrace maizes into a “grafted maize tree.” Developed in collaboration with Dr. Dave Jackson and supported by the AIR Program at Genspace, The Frankencorn Project has unfolded in three distinct phases:
A. Plant Callus Grafting (Genspace Residency)
During a residency at Genspace, the artist worked with callus cultures—a growing mass of unorganized plant cells stimulated by plant hormones. This phase involved experimenting with tissue culture techniques to begin merging maize varieties at a cellular level.
B. Open-Air Pollination (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Building on the work from Genspace, the second phase introduced controlled pollination experiments in an open-air setting. By cultivating different maize lineages side by side, this stage highlighted the flow of genetic traits across borders and natural environments.
C. Creative Science Dinner (NEW INC)
In this final phase of The Frankencorn Project, the artist examines how maize genetic lineages weave and mesh across borders, revealing the co-evolution of corn and humanity. Collaborating with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s research field, a fictional grafted maize tree—a “frankencorn”—is presented, merging Teosinte, B73, and a traditional Mexican Landrace into a single sculptural organism. This grafted herbaria sample symbolizes the convergence of Zea mays lineages and underscores the genetic complexity behind the human-corn co-domestication process. Drawing on Frankenstein’s monster to evoke the fusion of science fiction and agriculture, The Frankencorn Project explores the intertwined nature of maize genetics and our evolving relationship with synthetic biology.