Altered states: Food, Flora and Frames

Food is an emotional and personal topic. Some people love eating, and others have a love/hate relationship with it. We went from hunter-gatherers to growers to food engineers. At the same time, we are scared of chemicals and genetically modified foods. For one day, let's put our emotions aside and look at our food from a scientific perspective. Let's discuss why we modify foods and listen to your concerns about why we should not.

Would you travel across the world for poop? We do. As human lifestyles shift toward more urban and industrialized ways of living, our gut microbes are changing too. Yet most microbiome research still focuses on people in industrialized settings, leaving out a huge part of the world population. The Global Microbiome Conservancy (GMbC) is working to change that. We collaborate with scientists from around the globe to collect and preserve the microbial diversity within humans, all while making microbiome science more inclusive and uncovering microbial stories about human health and evolution. One stool sample at a time!

Ever wondered how different art forms can collide to create something entirely new? Join mixed media artist Nam Intal as she takes you on a journey through her evolving creative process. From capturing fleeting moments with photography to expressing emotion and memory through painting, Nam’s work is a fusion of the real and the imagined.
She’ll reveal how she transfers photographs onto unexpected surfaces, layers textures, and experiments with materials to build new visual stories. What drives her? How do the elements of color, texture, and layering shape her work? And how has she navigated the challenges and discoveries along the way? Come find out how one artist continues to break boundaries, evolving with every piece.