About
Greg Orrom Swan is an artist and designer, currently tutoring at LCC, University of the Arts London and graduating from MA Information Experience Design (IED) at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2018.
Fascinated by biology, geology, and chemistry, his work explores the links between things, the interconnectedness of complex systems, and the nuances of norms or minutiae—deconstructing them, and looking at the constituent parts together, as parts of a whole. He applies a molecular gaze, aiming to highlight how humans are not separate from the living world, but both distinct and similar to the nonhuman parts of our world. This poetic and conceptual space allows him to attempt to communicate the often strange and lurid connections between the different assemblages of humans and nonhumans, highlighting our shared ancestry, minerality, and elementality.
Having previously exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, NY, London Design Festival, and at symposiums such as State Festival, Berlin, and Hello Tomorrow, Paris, Orrom Swan has been shorvtlisted for the BioDesign Challenge 2017, and the Bio Art & Design Award 2017. For the past three years, and until recently he co-founded the bio-technology research start-up Olombria, which looked at future pollination systems using natural chemical signalling and pollinating hoverflies to supplement declining bee populations, throughout working alongside scientists, researchers, and engineers.
Read an article from CLOT Magazine on his work here.
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Selected Exhibitions
BioDesign Challenge Digital Showcase, Digital, 2020
Mikrobia, Vega Scene, Oslo, 2019
Vitalist Materialism, HOP Projects, Folkestone, 2019
Viborg Animation Festival, Denmark, 2019
Forbes Agri-Tech Summit, Salinas, California, 2019
BioDesign: Here & Now, London Design Festival, Open Cell, 2018
Show 2018, Royal College of Art, London, 2018
Agri-Tech East, University of Cambridge, 2017
Hello Tomorrow, Centquare, Paris, 2017
BioDesign Summit, MoMA, New York, 2017
RCA BioDesign Challenge, White City Place, London, 2017
Open Senses, Multi Venue, London, 2017
48hrs in Lake District, Bethnal Green Crypt, London, 2017
STATE Festival of Emotion, Kühlhaus, Berlin, 2016
Lahyn, Solo Show, Quarter Horse, Oxford, 2014
Graft, Block Gallery, Bristol, 2013
Bristol Artist Book Event, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2013
Artist Book Fair, Spike Island, Bristol 2012
Awards
BioDesign Challenge, 2nd Prize, 2017
Bio Art & Design Award, shortlisted, 2017
Coats Foundation Trust, Arts Support, 2017
Oxfordshire Young Artist of the Year, 2014
Residencies
Artist Exhibition Society with Sail Britain, Norfolk Broads, 2017
Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn, Lake District, 2017
Gallery Education / Project Involvement
Technical Art Assistant Future of the Home, Elephant Gallery, London, 2019
Artistic Facilitator Science Late: Elemental, Science Gallery, London, 2019
Artist Assistant Royal Academy: Sensing Architecture, Walmer Yard, London, 2018
Organiser & Facilitator Friction Artist & Writers Talks, Oxford, 2014–2017
Soup for 100, Foundling Museum, London, 2013–2016
Professional Appointments
Visiting Practitioner, University of the Arts, London, 2019–Present
Visiting Lecturer, Royal College of Art, London, 2018
Presenter, Animal Computer Interaction Conference, Milton Keynes, 2017
Publications / Mentions
Greg Orrom Swan, A Measure of Minerality, Clot Magazine, 2018
Future Technology, Farming Today, BBC Radio 4, 2018
Innovative exhibition tackles the future of food, SciArt Magazine, 2017
RCA Bio-design: Using Flies to Pollinate Fields Could Transform Agriculture, 2017
© Copyright Greg Orrom Swan 2020