ARTS AND BIOETHICS NETWORK

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Coordinator: Paul Ulhas MacNeill

Paul Ulhas Macneill, MA, LLB, PhD
(Honorary) Associate Professor
Sydney Health Ethics
School of Public Health
University of Sydney
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: +61 290 363 405
Email: paul.macneill@sydney.edu.au

Goals. The aim of this network is to increase the contribution of the arts to bioethics. It is our belief that the arts enrich bioethical discourse and open up new creative approaches on bioethical issues. Bioethical issues such as cloning, genetic engineering have been the subject of theatre, drama, dance, books and movies. An artistic exploration of these issues has captured the public imagination in various ways. Fiction, drama, movies and alternative expressions reframe and conceptualize issues and influence public perception and understanding in powerful ways. Recognizing a contribution from the arts opens a wider avenue to contributions from many cultures. This network will stimulate artistic explorations into culture and bioethics through the initiation of interdisciplinary dialogue between the textual and the non-textual, and between cultures. The network has four aims:

• To promote critical engagement between artists and non-artists
• To encourage and facilitate the publication of scholarly articles in journals, on arts-bioethics issues
• To serve as a forum for reporting of arts events which explore bioethics issues
• To engage in dialogue through personal experiences in artistic explorations
• To engage with other IAB networks on the artistic exploration into their focus themes

Launch of  The Arts and Bioethics Network. The Arts and Bioethics Network was launched at the 9th World Congress of Bioethics, in September 2008 in Rijeka, Croatia with The Art of Bioethics Exhibition, an Arts Bioethics Performance, a movie, and several academic papers.