Bettina Forget
Bettina is the Director of the SETI Institute’s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program. In this capacity, she facilitates the collaboration between artists and SETI researchers, foregrounds art-science research practice, and creates opportunities to disseminate the resulting art projects to a wider audience.
She is currently a doctoral candidate in Art Education at Concordia University, Canada. Her research examines the recontextualization of art and science, and how transdisciplinary education may disrupt gender stereotypes.
Bettina’s creative work focuses on space sciences, inspired by her avid engagement with amateur astronomy. She has exhibited her artwork in the USA, Canada, Germany, Iceland, Russia, Spain, Singapore, and Nicaragua.
Born in Germany, Bettina has studied at Central St-Martins School of Art in London, England and at Curtin University in Perth, Australia and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore.
Bettina Forget CV
Education
2017 – present Concordia University
PhD Art Education | Montreal, Canada
2015 – 2017 Concordia University
MA Art Education | Montreal, Canada
2000 – 2001 Curtin University of Technology / Nanyang Academy of Fine Art
BA (Fine Art) | Perth, Australia & Singapore
1989 – 1991 Central Saint Martins College of Art (London University)
BA(hons) Graphic Design | London, England
1989 – 1987 City and East London College
B/TEC Diploma in General Art and Design | London, England
Work Experience
2020 – present SETI Institute
Director, Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program
2007 – 2021 Visual Voice Gallery
Owner, Director | Montreal, Canada
2009 – 2011 Art+Culture / Art+Culture Editions
Director, Canada | New York, USA
2002 – 2009 Full-time visual artist | Singapore & Montreal, Canada
2001 – 2002 Voice Graphic Design & Art Studio
Owner, Director | Singapore
2001 – 1997 Visual Voice Graphic Design
Owner, Director | Singapore
Academic/Research Experience
2020 – 2021 Concordia University
Concordia Public Scholar | Montréal, Canada
2019 Xenoform Labs
Artist-in-Residence | San Francisco, California, USA
2018 Mont-Mégantic Observatory (Université de Montréal)
Artist-in-Residence | Montreal/Mont-Mégantic, Canada
2016 – 2020 SETI Institute
Art/Science researcher, Artist-in-Residence program | Mountain View, California, USA
2018 – 2021 Concordia University, Design and Computational Arts department
Part-Time Professor, DART 498/631 (Convergence: Arts, Neuroscience, and Society) | Montreal, Canada
2017 Concordia University, Art Education department
Part-time professor, ARTE220 (Foundations of Art Education) | Montreal, Canada
2016 – present Concordia University, Art Education department
Research Assistant (Juan Carlos Castro) | Montreal, Canada
2016 Concordia University, Art Education department
Teaching Assistant (Martin Lalonde) | Montreal, Canada
Awards
2021 Concordia University President’s Media Outreach Award, Research Communicator of the Year – International
2020 Concordia University Public Scholar Program Award
2017 Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Fellowship
2017 Renata and Michal Hornstein Doctoral Scholarship
2017 Canadian Society for Education through Art Masters Thesis Award
2016 Faculty of Fine Arts Fellowship, Concordia University
2016 Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement (SSHRC)
2015 Bourses d’études Hydro-Québec
2015 Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Scholarship
Board Positions
2023 – present BW Musique, Board member
2021 – 2023 SETI Institute, Advisor, Science Council
2018 – 2020 Convergence Initiative, Vice President, Director of Fine Art
2011 – 2019 English Language Arts Network, (ELAN) President (since 2015), Visual Arts Representative (since 2011)
2009 – 2011 Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Montreal Centre (RASC) President (since 2007),
Editor of “Skyward” (since 2005)
2007 – 2010 International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA) Director of Exhibitions
Publications
Peer-reviewed journal
Forget, B. (2021) Merging dualities: How convergence points in art and science can (re)engage women with the STEM field, Canadian Review of Art Education, 48(1), 20-37.
Forget, B. (2021) Women With Impact: Taking One Small Step into the Universe, Leonardo 54(1), 63-70.
Forget, B. (2019) Goethe’s Color Theory: Optics and Visual Poetry. Antennae, (47), 210-226.
Forget, B. (2018) Moon Colony: Taking STEAM to Outer Space. Canadian Art Teacher, 16(1), 6-11.
Forget, B. (2007) We Are Stardust. The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 101(5), 193.
Book Chapters
Forget, B. (2024) Women With Impact / One Small Step. In: M.P. Boucher, C. Webb, A. Bureaud, Nahum (Eds), Space Feminisms, Bloomsbury.
Forget B. (2019) Girls and Their Smartphones: Emergent Learning Through Apps That Enable. In: Castro J. (eds) Mobile Media In and Outside of the Art Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Pariser D., Forget B. (2019) The Social Organization of Students in Class Versus in an Online Social Network: Freedom and Constraint in Two Different Settings. In: Castro J. (eds) Mobile Media In and Outside of the Art Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Szathmáry, K., Broome-Riviere, J., Forget, B. (2012). Swirly Art: Techniques and Masterpieces of the Experimental and Abstract, in J. Ramer (Ed.), The Beauty of Space (pp. 83-97). Panama City, FL: International Association of Astronomical Artists.
Conference Paper
Pariser, D., Forget, B. (2016). Why have there been no Art Educators as Public Intellectuals?, presented at the National Art Education Association, Chicago, USA, Higher Education Division Forum: Art Educators in Academia as Public Intellectual.
Speaking Engagements / Conferences (selection)
2023 Imagine Aliens: Engaging girls with STEM through the arts
United Nations Space4Women Expert Meeting, poster presentation
2023 Are we alone? How trans-disciplinary practice helps us to conceive of Life beyond Earth
ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Art), Paris, France (speaker)
2021 Perceive Cosmos | Explore Chaos
CYLAND MediaArtLab and Leonardo/ISAST, panel discussion, available as a podcast at https://leonardo.info/blog/2021/04/21/episode-03-far-and-away
2021 Scratch Space: Digging Down into our Planetary Futures
Panel discussion with Forget, B., Liu, X., Obbard, R., Conwell, D. in collaboration with the Montalvo Arts Center and the SETI AIR Program,
Donna Conwell (host).
2021 Scratch Space: Synthetic Life.
Panel discussion with Forget, B., Bonaccorsi, R., Liebl, V., Garcia, L., Conwell, D. (host), in collaboration with the Montalvo Arts Center. https://youtu.be/fbP1lh13oFI
2021 Laboratories artistique
Association des communicateurs scientifiques du Québec, ACSCongres 2021.
(online), panelist
2020 Telluric Vibrations:
The Cosmos above us and the touchscreen in front of us
Ars Electronica / Leonardo ISAST / CYLAND, (online), panelist
2020 Opportunities for Online Art and Science Collaboration
LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talks, (online), panelist
2019 Women With Impact: Gender and Lunar Nomenclature
Royal Museums Greenwich Conference: The Art and Science of the Moon, Greenwich (London), Great Britain, speaker
2019 Girls and STEAM: How Fusing Art and Science Can Disrupt Gender Stereotypes
InSEA World Congress, Vancouver, speaker
2019 La recherche de design en education à travers la loupe de création en art
ACFAS 87th Congress, Gatineau, poster presentation
2019 Women in Lunar Nomenclature
International Astronomy Day, Planetarium Rio Tinto Alcan, Montreal, speaker
2019 Convergence: Arts, Neuroscience, and Society
National Association of Education in Art (NAEA) National Convention, Boston, USA, speaker
2018 Converging Art and Astronomy: New Perspectives on Lunar Nomenclature and Exoplanet Research
Montreal Space Symposium, Montreal, speaker
2018 Converging Art and Science: Considering the Conditions in which Women and Girls enter STEM
Canadian Society for Education through Art Conference, Winnipeg, speaker
2018 Exploring Wonder: Art, Science, and Creative Inquiry
Convergence Art-Sci-Sci-Art Conference Series, Montreal, speaker
2017 Scientific Literacy and Citizen Involvement: The Convergence of Science and Art
Les Journées internationales de la Culture Scientifique JICS, Montreal, panelist
2017 The Creative Power of Collaboration, YES Montreal Conference, Montreal, panelist
2016 A Touch of Colour: Creating Interactive Images with Thermochromic Paints
International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA), Montreal, workshop leader
2016 Thinking Outside the Universe, Pop Montreal, Montreal, panelist
2016 The Paint-Stained Telescope: Focusing on the Intersection of Art and Science
Dawson College ScienceFest, Montreal, plenary speaker
2013 Understanding Late Picasso, Ten Stories (And More)
IPLAI (Institute for the Public Life of Art and Ideas), McGill University, Montreal, speaker
Exhibitions (selection)
2023 The Lifecycle of Celestial Objects Parts 1 and 2, McIntosh Gallery, London, Canada (group show)
2022 Exotopia, Gray Area, San Francisco, USA (duo show)
2022 Digital Awareness, ISEA 2022, Espronceda Institute of Art & Culture, Barcelona, Spain (group show)
2021 Cosmos and Chaos, CYFEST 13, Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, Russia, (group show)
2020 Les Refusés, McBride Contemporary, Montreal, Canada (group show)
2019 Merveilles Célestes, Cosmodôme, Laval, Canada (duo show)
2019 – 2020 Femmes d’impact/Women With Impact, Planetarium Rio Tinto Alcan, Montreal, Canada (solo show)
2018 Merveilles Célestes, Centre d’exposition de l’Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada (duo show)
2018 Parallax-e, Foreman Art Gallery, Sherbrooke, Canada (group show)
2017 The Art of Planetary Science, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Arizona, USA (group show)
2016 Celestial Nomenclature, Ted T. Katz Family Trust Gallery, Montreal, Canada (solo show)
2016 Alptraum, RAE Space for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (group show)
2014 24-Hour Days, Listhús Art Centre, Olafsfjordur, Iceland (group show)
2013 Revolutions, The Canadian Space Society, Endeavor Arts Gallery, Calgary, Canada (group show)
2010 Forever – Change, Visual Voice Art Gallery, Montreal, Canada (solo show)
2009 Somnium – A Voyage to the Moon, Visual Voice Art Gallery, Montreal, Canada (solo show)
2008 ASTRO ‘08, Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, Montreal, Canada (group show)
2007 Cosmic Vision, Casa de Los Tres Mundos, Granada, Nicaragua (group show)
2006 Space Art Show, International Space Development Conference, Los Angeles, USA (group show)
2005 Looking Up, Imaginarium, Nevada City, CA, USA (group show)
2004 Snap-to-Grid, LACDA, Los Angeles, USA (group show)