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Regenerative Reliquary
Artist Amy Karle is a pioneering bioartist who uses the body to explore what it means to be human through a unique negotiation of art, design, science and technology.
Leveraging the intelligence of human stem cells, she created “Regenerative Reliquary”, a bioprinted scaffold in the shape of a human hand design, 3D printed on the microscopic level in a biodegradable pegda hydrogel. The sculpture is installed in a bioreactor, with the intention that human Mesenchymal stem cells from an adult donor seeded onto that design will eventually grow into tissue and mineralize into bone along that scaffold.
Referencing the traditional presentation of relics in their reliquaries, “Regenerative Reliquary” is a finely detailed skeleton-like sculpture encased in the mechanical womb of a glass bioreactor. Instead of enshrining the inanimate remains left after death as a memorial to the life that was once there, “Regenerative Reliquary” presents the opposite, depicting the possibility of life from an inanimate object.
Karle's bioartwork establishes a new form of artwork and helps to establish this emerging field in the art world. Her work also expands opportunities for biomedical applications, healing and enhancing our bodies, and making things that were never possible to create before.
Leveraging the intelligence of human stem cells, she created “Regenerative Reliquary”, a bioprinted scaffold in the shape of a human hand design, 3D printed on the microscopic level in a biodegradable pegda hydrogel. The sculpture is installed in a bioreactor, with the intention that human Mesenchymal stem cells from an adult donor seeded onto that design will eventually grow into tissue and mineralize into bone along that scaffold.
Referencing the traditional presentation of relics in their reliquaries, “Regenerative Reliquary” is a finely detailed skeleton-like sculpture encased in the mechanical womb of a glass bioreactor. Instead of enshrining the inanimate remains left after death as a memorial to the life that was once there, “Regenerative Reliquary” presents the opposite, depicting the possibility of life from an inanimate object.
Karle's bioartwork establishes a new form of artwork and helps to establish this emerging field in the art world. Her work also expands opportunities for biomedical applications, healing and enhancing our bodies, and making things that were never possible to create before.
