Return of the Teratoma — Lyndsey Walsh

Smell concept and realization made by Theresa Zwerschke and Lyndsey Walsh for and in collaboration with Shu Lea Cheang, Commissioned by Haus der Kunst Munich.

2025

Smell composition of “whale-centric planetary metabolism” for “Whale Falls, Carbon Sinks” installation as part of “Carbon” Exhibition

Smell concept realized by Lyndsey Walsh and Alanna Lynch for Carbon Aesthetics Group (Desiree Foerster, Andrés Burbano, Myriel Milicevic, Alex Toland, Clemens Winkler and Karolina Sobecka) for exhibition at Science Gallery Bengaluru

2023

Curation

Venue

Year

I’m Daddy: “Artificial Follies” exhibition

Dzialdov, Berlin, Germany

2023

I’m Daddy: “LORE” exhibition

Gelegenheiten, Berlin, Germany

2022

“Art and Natural Sciences: Master Showcase 2021”

AIR.ITMO, St. Petersburg, Russia

2021

Writing

Publisher Name and Type

Year

Articles: CLOT Magazine

CLOT Magazine is an online publishing platform dedicated to art/technology interactions and experimental art forms based out of London, UK. Lyndsey is a Contributing Writer, authoring Op-Ed, Interviews, Insights, and more since 2020.

Various

Articles: Makery Media

Makery.info is an online and bilingual (French/English) magazine, covering the Do-It-Yourself and creative communities scenes in art, science, technologies. Lyndsey is a contributing chronicler, authoring articles since 2023.

Various

Book Contribution (3 Recipes, titled: “First Course: How to grow a Rainbow”, “Second Course: How to Feed Your Cancer”, “Third Course: How to Feed the Earth”)

Commissioned and Written for The Course Book, a companion publication to The Course project by the South Korean curatorial collective named set. Publication is biligual (with both Korean and English versions of the contributed texts).

TBA

Book Contributions: “Self-Care” (solo authorship) and “Smell Workshop” (co-written with Alanna Lynch)

Commissioned and written for the Matter of Flux book, which is a publication of the research project “Matter of Flux” initiated by Art Laboratory Berlin.

2024

Book Contribution: “Living Waste: An Artistic Intervention on Genetic Engineering at the Humboldt Lab”

Commissioned and written for the After Nature Laboratory Notebook accompanying the After Nature Exhibition by the Humboldt Labor at the Humboldt Forum, with publishers Humboldt University of Berlin and DIAPHANES.

2024

Chapter in Book: “Crips, cryptids, and imagining other beings”

Commissioned and written for FERAL Labs node book #2, Feralities, edited by Yvonne Billimore, Tina Dolinšek, Uroš Veber, published by BioArt Society and Zavod Projekt Atol in the context of Rewilding Cultures project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the EU.

2024

Academic Article: “Self-Care: Seeking Queer Liberation from the Medical Gaze and Genetic Fatalism”

Accepted and published in the AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, Section: Main Topic: Art, Science, and Health, Issue No.: 32, October 2023, .

2023

Blog Article: “The Teratoma Will Always Return”

Commissioned and written for Posthuman Laboratories as part of the Intelligence Unbound Project (online)

2023

Academic Article: “(R)EVOLUTION: Optogenetics Art and Interspecies Microperformance”

Accepted and published in Journal of British Computer Science, Politics of the Machines - Rogue Research

2021

Articles: Unbore Collective

Unbore Collective is an organisation and online platform based in the Netherlands that fosters and advocates arts, life sciences and technology intersections. Lyndsey was a contributing writer for Unbore from 2019-2020.

2019-2020

Magazine Article: “Young and Healthy and Waiting to Get Cancer”

Commissioned and published for Nautilus Magazine, US based Science, Culture, and Technology Magazine.

2020

RETURN OF THE TERATOMA

Return of the Teratoma is a multidisciplinary artwork, exploring the monsters that haunt the promising potential of stem cells, poised as an endless surplus of life. At its centerpiece is a 10-minute horror film, depicting the monstrous body of the teratoma as a creature displaced from its host.

As interests and investments continue to be directed at laboratory-grown cellular entities and organs, the teratoma (a cancerous mass of mixed tissues , such as hair, teeth, and more) is a figure that is destined to continually return. A product of unpromising and cancerous potential originating from stem cells and state-of-the-art stem cell culturing procedures, the body of the teratoma is both the monstrous mother who has birthed stem cells and the monster that the material of stem cells continues to return to.

With each comeback, the teratoma’s presence directs our attention to shifting cultural concerns and technoscientific desires. It is both a product of biological potential that actively evades the promises of the Bioeconomy and a creature born from the ruptures in the corporeality of culture.

Return of the Teratoma is simply one of these comebacks, or a critically unacclaimed sequel, featuring a truly coveted or beloved monster. Return of the Teratoma builds off the legacy of historical narratives, philosophical insights, cultural studies, and the works of artists and creators who have summoned the monstrous power of the unruly cellular potential to unveil profound cultural insights about bodies and bodily potentials.

The work explores the horror and material legacy of amorphous forms that refuse to behave, reject measures of whatever can be called “ made in good taste”, and erode our sense of security that a promising potential is always hopeful, always better. The work asserts that the monster makes no other promises than to always return— and maybe this time it will be back with vengeance.

Exhibited alongside the film are the preserved bodies of the formerly living teratomas that Lyndsey grew for the work. These teratomas were grown from human embryonic stem cells.

2018

“Return of the Teratoma” video stills (slideshow).

“Return of the Teratoma” at the Moores Building for the Lyndsey’s solo exhibition “Return of the Teratoma” (2018) in Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (slideshow).

“Return of the Teratoma” in the online exhibition “Ties That Cannot Be Unbound” in New Art City (2023), curated and produced by UAAD.

“Return of the Teratoma” in the exhibition “things we meet in the dark” at Villa Heike (2024), curated by Kleine Humboldt Galerie (slideshow).

“Return of the Teratoma” Credits:

This work was made in collaboration with Dr. Stuart Hodgetts (UWA Spinal Cord Repair Laboratory and Perron Institute), Dr. Carla Mellough (Lion’s Eye Research Institute and Perkins Research Institute, and Mark Depasquale (video producer and editor), with the support of SymbioticA Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts and the University of Western Australia.

Featuring an original soundscape by Braden Bjella.

Return of the Teratoma debuted as part of Lyndsey Walsh’s solo exhibition “Return of the Teratoma” at the Moores Building in Fremantle, WA, Australia.

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