Host is a transgenic bioart project in which I used a DIY CRISPR protocol to edit Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast) with a fragment of my own DNA, and then bake bread with it. The entire procedure took place in my kitchen, creating a speculative ritual that plays with the idea of symbolic cannibalism. The bread becomes a site of exchange between genes, species, and identities.

I based my workflow on the protocol outlined in the CRISPR in Your Kitchen kit but modified it with a custom gBlock repair template. The sequence I designed combines mitochondrial DNA from my 23andMe results with part of the mitochondrial reference genome of Homo sapiens, blending my own matrilineal code with that of Mitochondrial Eve. The hybrid insert targets the yeast’s ADE2 gene, and I folded the resulting mutant colonies into bread dough. Although baking destroys the yeast and denatures the DNA, the bread remains symbolically marked by this act of bioengineering.

The final work is an installation: a loaf of bread on a silver platter beside a multisensory video. The video is a meditation on fermentation, skin, and microbial intimacy in slow, ASMR-like gestures. Together these elements constitute an exploration of the ethics and poetics of biotechnological procedures.

For this project, I drew on the theories of Donna Haraway, Julia Kristeva, and Michel Serres to explore notions of hybridity, abjection, and parasitism. In the slippage between baking, editing, offering, and eating, I ask: Who gets to do genetic work, and where? Can biotechnology be an act of entanglement or domination, parasitism or symbiosis? Ultimately, who is the guest, and who is the host?

See more at arden.art/projects/host.