Dr Helen Pynor is an Artist and Researcher whose practice explores philosophically and experientially ambiguous zones, such as the life-death boundary, the intersubjective nature of organ transplantation, the animate-inanimate boundary in relation to prosthetics, and the status of DNA once it leaves its originating body. Pynor works with living and ‘semi-living’ cells, organs and biomolecules such as DNA, and in her recent work Habitation her own surgically excised bone material, which she used to make a bone china object (https://experimenta.org/artworks/habitation/). She works across installation, media art, video, microscopy, performance, sculpture and photography.

Pynor’s work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally including at ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; Experimenta Life Forms International Triennial of Media Art; Beijing Media Art Biennale; FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) UK; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; Science Gallery Dublin; Science Gallery London; Powerhouse Museum MAAS, Sydney; ISEA2013, Sydney; Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester); Wellcome Collection, London; Galerija Kapelica, Ljubljana; Australian Centre for Photography; and Leonardo Electronic Almanac MIT, online.

Pynor was awarded an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria for her collaborative work The Body is a Big Place and she has received national awards in Australia. Pynor frequently undertakes in-depth residencies in scientific and clinical institutions in the development of her work, including The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (Dresden); The Francis Crick Institute (London); The Heart and Lung Transplant Unit, St Vincent’s Hospital (Sydney); SymbioticA, University of Western Australia (Perth); and most recently the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (Adelaide). Pynor holds a PhD, a Bachelor of Visual Arts (both from The University of Sydney) and a Bachelor of Science (1st Class Hons) (Macquarie University). Pynor lives and works in Sydney and London. (http://www.helenpynor.com/)