Burton Nitta

Burton Nitta is Anglo-Japanese duo Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta. Their research and works navigate speculative futures, engaging in social and environmental concerns to imagine their manifestation and impact on evolutionary changes (intentional and consequential) to the world. They create images, objects, films, experiences and use biological systems to explore future pathways whereby human values, dreams and desires guide actions. At the heart of their work is an interrogation of the human animal and an opportunity to taste alternative worlds and versions of our humanness; how we act, function and live.

Their most recent work called Landscape Within, was supported by a Wellcome Arts Award and launched at the V&A to over 20,000 visitors during the London Design Festival weekend. Made in collaboration with Dr Louise Horsfall and the Horsfall Lab at the University of Edinburgh and Dr Susan Hodgson from Imperial College, London, Landscape Within makes synthetic biology central in a new digestive machine to prepare our future bodies for living in the late Anthropocene Era with no escape from heavy metal contamination. 

Burton Nitta are residents of Studio 48.

As residents, Burton Nitta continued to explore the future of human evolution and it's impact on the wider world. Critical to all their projects is an underlying enquiry into human nature and the consequential impact of our actions, so making new collaborations was integral to their time at the Studios.