Since 2016, High has been an artist-in-residence as part of the Imagenomics program with William DePaolo’s lab, first at the University of Southern California and now at University of Washington. High and DePaolo are collaborating on a series of new works that have arisen from their collaborative research.

This presentation explores the field of biological arts and High's own projects. Her current research focuses on the immune system and particularly looks at the interaction of our human gut microbiota as a biological symbiosis, a holobient, collaborative interaction between species. Or, as Donna Haraway refers to us in this age of the Anthropocene, "we need each other in an obligate symbiosis.”

Dr. William DePaolo is a mucosal immunologist currently investigating how diet, infections, and genetics can impact our gut bacteria and shape our health. His current research extends across scientific disciplines and clinical diseases including obesity, colon cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease.  He has had continuous NIH funding since his postdoctoral fellowship and his research has been published in journals such as Science, Nature, and Cell Host & Microbe. He believes firmly that science should be accessible to the greater community and has incorporated social media, visual arts, and marketing into his scientific research. He has appeared on the Today Show, is a regular contributor to Huffington Post, and has ongoing collaborations with Buzzfeed Media. Currently, he is collaborating on a project with artist and educator Kathy High on the human microbiome.

Kathy High is an interdisciplinary artist, educator working in the areas of technology, science, and art. She works with animals an living systems, and considers the social, political, and ethical dilemmas surrounding areas of medicine/bio-science, biotechnology, and interspecies collaborations. She has received awards from Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, NS National Endowment for the Arts, among others. Her art works have been shown at documenta 13 (Germany); Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center and Exit Art (NYC); UCLA (Los Angeles); Science Gallery (Dublin); NGBK (Berlin); Fesitval Transitio_MX (Mexico); MASS MoCA (North Adams); Videotage Art Space (Hong Kong).