Yasmeen Märker (previously Jasmin) is a bio-artist, anti-disciplinary researcher and PhD candidate in plant invasion ecology/ environmental microbiology. Their practice challenges existing binaries, systems and classification and provides creative art-science research projects involving public art presentations, talks, and participatory workshops. They believe that one of the key problems is the division of knowledge into disciplines and that epistemologically we should go back to the times of the big inventors like DaVinci, merging whacky philosophical question and curious stupidity to come up with a more sustainable human existence. Yasmeen is particularly interested in interactions of microbes and humans through the things the latter ingest or sink into the soil.
Yasmeen has won numerous awards and residencies such as Creative Bursary, Belfast City Council 2023/24, Freeland's artist program 2019-21, Rapid Residency Program Science Gallery Dublin 2019. They participated in exhibitions in Ireland/ UK and abroad. Exhibitions include Terrascope, Mother Tongue, MAC Belfast 2024, Microbial Fables, If We Could Ourselves As Others See Us with Dumbworld, Solstice Arts Centre, 2023, From Culture to Culture, IMMA Ireland 2023. They offer workshops to both children and adults e.g. Sex and City, 2023, city nature walk exploring non-human reproduction, Slime Dynamics, 2019, workshops on slime-moulds and gentrification, Mycelium as Sustainable Art Material, 2018.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
January 2024 - now PhD at Biological School , Queen's University Belfast: Himalayan balsam as model system for invasion pollution interactions and targets for control (funded by DAERA)
2022/23 - Postgraduate Diploma in Ecological Management with Distinction
2016 - TIG Welding Qualification Belfast Metropolitan School
2014 - 2016 Bachelor of Fine Art (Sculpture and Lens-Making) with Distinction
2012 - 2014 HND Art & Design at Glasgow Kelvin College Grade A
2008-2010 International Baccalaureate, United World College in Mostar, with full scholarship by UWC Germany foundation
Selected Residencies and Awards:
2023- 2024 Belfast City Council, Creative Bursary Programme
2019 - 2021 Freeland's Programme Award, Freeland's Foundation London
2021 Fundacion Mar Adentro's Bosque Pehuen residency, Chile (remotely)
2020 Rapid Residency Award, Science Gallery Dublin
2019 Residency at Zaratan Arte Contemporânea in collaboration with Catalyst Arts
2018 Residency at Interface Inagh, where art meets science
2017 Professional Development Residency at Leitrim Sculpture Workshops
Selected Exhibitions & Events
2024 Exocyst, funded as part of Creative Bursary Programme by Belfast City Council
2024 Mother Tongue, MAC Belfast, N. Ireland
2023 Microbial Fables, If We Could See Ourselves As Others See Us, Dumbworld
2023 From Culture to Culture, Earth Rising Festival IMMA Ireland
2022 Terrascope, Aggregate, Freeland's Gallery, London
2021 My Immortals, Entanglements in Time, Lewisham Arthouse, London
2020 Slime Dynamics II, participatory slime-mould workshops and exhibitons, NI Science Festival, PS2 Gallery, Belfast
2019 And if there was Light ..., Platform Arts , Belfast
2018 My Immortals, Kill's 99,9% of Bacteria, CCA Derry:Londonderry
Selected Workshop & Talks
2023 Non-human nightlife, interactive walk showing the bustling non-human nightlife in Belfast City
2023 NI Science Festival art workshops about and with soil chemistry
2022 Playhouse Derry : Art, Science & Magic workshops with pH-sensitive pigments , as well as part of
2022 Artabyss Festival, Limavady
2022 CCA:Derry Londonderry recorded workshops creating seed collecting and sprouting glove puppets
2021 Non-Human Academia, workshops with slime-moulds at Goethe Institute Dublin
2020 Mycelium as sustainable art material at Vault Artist Studios