The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is pleased to announce the appointment of Desiree Foerster as Director of the newly named Gray Co-Laboratory for Arts and Science, formerly the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative.

Foerster assumes the Director role along with a concurrent role as Senior Research Associate in the Cinema and Media Studies department at the University. Previously, Foerster was an Assistant Professor for Digital Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. She completed her PhD at the Institute for Arts and Media at the University of Potsdam. She brings with her a deep commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship and interest in combinations of theory and experimentation. In her scholarship, she is particularly interested in the ways aesthetic experiences can generate new knowledge about the body and cognitive processes. Over the past years, she conducted several research-creation projects together with artists, designers, and academics from the University of Chicago, Concordia University, Arizona State University, and IXDM, Basel.

About taking on her new role, Foerster says, “I am deeply honored and thrilled to step into this role as Director of the Gray Co-Laboratory for Arts and Science. This is an extraordinary opportunity to collaborate with an inspiring team and to support the interdisciplinary work that is at the heart of the University of Chicago’s mission. I look forward to building on the legacy of the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative, fostering innovative connections between art and science, and empowering our fellows to push the boundaries of creativity and discovery.”

The Arts, Science + Culture Initiative was founded in 2011 by Julie Marie Lemon to foster opportunities for scholars, graduate students, and arts practitioners, to think together and to experiment in proximity to one another, within the University and the city of Chicago. Over the course of its first decade, ASCI established well-regarded graduate fellowships and a collaboration grant program as well as offered public programming, all of which focused on cultivating productive discourse and fruitful relationships across the arts and sciences. “Desiree is conducting exciting research at the intersection of the arts, sciences, and contemporary media. She has undertaken research creation projects with scholars and artists at Concordia University, Arizona State University, Utrecht University, and here at the University of Chicago. She is the ideal scholar to continue and further transform the work that Julie Marie Lemon began years ago,” says Patrick Jagoda, Professor of English, Cinema and Media Studies, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Chicago.

Foerster joins Associate Director Naomi Blumberg in re-envisioning the Arts-Science programming at the university, to consider where its impact can expand and how its work can reach more of the university community and beyond. “Having the opportunity to see a small, successful program live on and broaden its work and impact is really gratifying. I look forward to collaborating with Desiree to advance exciting, fresh ideas,” says Blumberg.

In addition to Foerster’s appointment, the Gray Co-Laboratory for Arts and Science will officially start its tenure as part of the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry. Over several years, the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry and the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative have each created experimental and innovative platforms that bring together international artists and scholars. The Gray Center provides an incubator for artists and university scholars across disciplines to collaborate through fellowships and through events at the Gray Center Lab, along with symposia, workshops, exhibitions, and screenings on campus and beyond. The merging of these two centers recognizes the contributions that each provides in creating unique platforms for faculty, graduate students, and the larger public to engage with artistic production and scholarship.

The Co-Laboratory for Arts and Science will build on the Gray’s collaborative coteaching and research platform and the new arts and humanities joint platform to bring together artists, humanists, and scientists. The collaborations will engage rigorous interdisciplinary pursuits that explore the experimental dimensions of scientific theory through art and humanities practice and new models for realizing the experiential and sensuous dimensions of scientific concepts.

“We are excited to work with Desiree who brings both a strong background in interdisciplinary work and a dynamic perspective to the co-laboratory,” says Leah Feldman, Interim Director of the Gray Center.