Genietta Varsi Selected for the 2026 BioClub’s Tokyo Art & Science Residency

Since 2018, BioClub Tokyo, a community lab supported by Loftwork and FabCafe, has partnered with the BioArt Society and the Finnish Institute in Japan to host the Tokyo Art & Science Research Residency. Each year, the program selects one applicant to work within BioClub’s laboratory facilities while connecting with the local creative community.

BioClub’s 2025 Artist in Residence, Santuu Laine sharing his findings from his residency period. Photo credit: Gina Goosby

Residents are chosen not only based on conceptual alignment, but are encouraged to engage with local communities to deepen their research with BioClub members and external collaborators alike. 

We are delighted to announce that for the 2026 Art Sci residency that Genietta Varsi has been selected to pursue her work S(w)ea(t) this year at BioClub.

Genietta Varsi wearing a uniform for her sweat collection performance. Photo credit: Genietta Varsi

Genietta Varsi (b. Lima, 1992), is a Peruvian sculptor and researcher whose practice explores the material relations between humans and their environments, handling biological and ecological activities as sculptural processes. She is interested in how our bodies are shaped by, and in turn shape, the spaces we inhabit. Working across sculpture, drawing, writing, video, and participatory actions, she often creates shared social rituals that turn personal biological processes into public experiences. Her current research focuses on urban waters and bodily fluids, examining how these liquids move across membranes at different scales. 

During her residency, Varsi will pursue a project she calls S(w)ea(t), a sculptural ritual that researches the connection between the body and the territory through salt. The work is a branch of an ongoing investigation she began in 2023 into sweat and salt harvesting. By gathering salt from two sources at once: human and the pacific ocean, she treats the transition from fluid to crystal as a material history of the land, connecting human biological systems and ecological flows.

Bespoke sweat collection device. Photo credit: Genietta Varsi

In Tokyo, that inquiry will be shaped by her local experiences and time at the lab. Varsi plans to map the city’s buried rivers and organize “sweating encounters” that bring those hidden waters back to the surface through the bodies of participants. Sweat will be collected using custom-designed glass and plastic tools, while seawater will be drawn from Tokyo Bay. Over four weeks, she plans to visit salt-harvesting sites and build her collection tools, document early experiments on video, and culminate in community workshops producing both sweat and sea-salt crystals.

Sweat crystals that Genietta has collected viewed under a microscope. Photo credit: Genietta Varsi

Varsi’s work sits squarely in the spirit of this residency: curious, hands-on, and unafraid of the strange and wonderful. Her attention to the body as porous and entangled with its territory promises such rich conversations with the BioClub community, and her participatory instincts are a natural fit for a space built on collaboration. We could not be more excited to welcome her to Tokyo and we look forward to following the sweat, the seawater and the salt as her project unfolds during her residency period.

Throughout the month, there will be opportunities to follow along in Genietta’s residency and practice at BioClub. During the first few weeks, Genietta will be invited to deliver a talk during one of the weekly Tuesday meetups early in her stay, along with a concluding presentation on her findings and research processes during her residency. To keep up with events, residencies, and projects in between, follow BioClub on Instagram at @bioclubtokyo, join the conversation on their Discord, and find everything else at bioclub.tokyo.