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
2010- 2012 Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at Glasgow School of Medicine (Year 1 Pass)
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
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