The Cost of Life


Beatriz da Costa was an interdisciplinary artist and researcher working at the intersection of contemporary art, science, engineering and politics.

Artist Bio

The Cost of Life is a series of projects addressing the emotional, political and economic costs involved in sustaining life. The first, Dying for the Other, is a video triptych juxtaposing the lives of breast cancer research mice and a human suffering from the same disease. Footage was taken over the course of three months in 2011, shortly following Beatriz da Costa’s brain surgery. The second, The Life Garden, is a medicinal anti-cancer demonstration garden consisting of plants, herbs and mushrooms with known anti-cancer properties; it includes a website providing in-depth references regarding the active ingredients of each plant, as well as growing instructions. The third, an installation and cooking workshop entitled The Delicious Apothecary is a direct outgrowth of The Life Garden. The fourth and final project, The Anti-Cancer Survival Kit, consists of several parts, and is designed for recently diagnosed patients and their loved ones.


Discipline
Bio Art, Video Art
Award Year
2009
Status

Discontinued

Beatriz da Costa

Beatriz da Costa

New York, NY

Beatriz da Costa was an interdisciplinary artist and researcher working at the intersection of contemporary art, science, engineering and politics. Her projects took the form of public participatory interventions, locative media, conceptual tool building and critical writing. A former collaborator with Critical Art Ensemble and co-founder of Preemptive Media (an art, activism and technology group), da Costa’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including The Andy Warhol Museum, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Germany and the Natural History Museum in London. Her awards include commissions from Eyebeam and the Exploratorium, and grants from the Durfee Foundation and Adobe. Da Costa passed away in 2012.