Upcoming online and in-person programs with the Biophilium

In addition to lectures by research scientists, each online program includes a thematic talk on live organisms in contemporary art and a lecture on opportunities and resources for research-artists relevant to your research topic.

UNDERTAKE
The Practical Side of Death

November 9 - 20, 2026

10-day webinar for artists to learn about practical death care and mourning rituals

With lectures on:
Community death care, home funerals, green burial, death doulas, historical and contemporary body disposition practices, obituary writing, embalming, standard funeral practices and mourning ritual in contemporary art.

NATURE MORTE
The Natural History of Death

January 4 - 15, 2027

10-day webinar for artists to learn about death in the wild

With lectures on:
Working with wild bones in the studio and the museum archive, fungal decay, vulture conservation, memorials for the More-Than-Human, green burial and conservation cemeteries, Crow funerals, botanical poisons, radical mortality acceptance, historical body disposition practices, and wild death in contemporary art.

MORTOLOGY
The Anthropology of Death

March 2027

10-day webinar for artists to learn about contemporary and historic funerary and mourning practices

With lectures on:
Victorian cemetery symbolism, momento moris, funeral attire, professional mourners, the personification of death in art history, Butoh dancing with death and decay, historical body disposition practices, relic veneration, European dance of death and mourning ritual in contemporary art.

SWEET NOTHING

A biology course on wildlife sex and reproduction for artists.

With lectures by guest research biologists on: love songs, mating dances, courtship rituals, pollination and seed spreading, slug sex, sexual selection, social structures, gender rolls, mating styles and sexual identity in the wild.

10 webinars in June, 2027
Applications due Feb. 1, 2027

MORTEM

This general death school for artists is proposed for 2027 details TBA

10-day webinars for artists to learn about death and mourning rituals

With lectures on:
Green Burial, death doulas, community death care & home funerals, historical body disposition practices, funeral attire, obituary writing, embalming & standard funeral practices, relic veneration, the personification of death in art history, mourning ritual in contemporary art and Victorian cemetery symbolism.

Upcoming in-person programs with the Biophilium

MYCOPHILIA FORAY

Mushroom hunting, collection, and observation
A 6-day fungal foray and retreat in Ontario in September, 2027

Applications due March 15, 2027

We are flexible and forgiving with application formats and deadlines.

BRAIN CLUB

First Thursday of every month

Free meeting about mental health and neurodivergence for artists.

Sing up for info and meeting links.