We Make Our Own Luck Here

(2018 - 2020)
Selectively bred white clover (Trifolium repens) plant(s), lab documentation

We Make Our Own Luck Here explores the ways in which culture and biotechnology interact using four leaf clovers, a symbol for luck. Using traditional selective breeding methods (mating two plants with desirable traits and planting the seeds) I have created white clover (Trifolium repens) plants with high numbers of four-leaf clovers. By exploring and modifying the genetics of a plant to create a ‘lucky’ specimen we can play with the ideas of fate and destiny, whether they be genetic or supernatural.

Are lucky four-leaf clovers still lucky if we use science to make them common? Scientists use biotechnology to transform our societies but we can quickly take these innovations for granted. Even antibiotics have gone from being the saviour of humanity to being overused to the point of creating new problems in less than a century. Can we that find joy from biotechnology outside of traditional research? Or should we be critical of how humanity might frivolously use its power?
We Make Our Own Luck Here questions what it means to be born lucky and what to means to work for your luck.

We Make Our Own Luck Here is was displayed at North Carolina State University as part of Art’s Work in Biotechnology (2019). The work was exhibited at Shibuya MTRL FabLab in August 2018. The project is supported by Waseda University.