In this thesis I examine contemporary interdisciplinary theory and practice in art, design, citizen science and synthetic biology. I explain the differences between three main knowledge distinctions of synthetic biology, and identify prominent artists, designers, and citizen scientists who are creating new modes of labour therein. I locate this research in Isabelle Stengers’ notion of the Ecology of Practices, which I connect to my own art practice as a DIY textile crafter. In the DIY Body Project installation, which took place at the Ontario Science Centre and online at diybody.org, a space is created for the public to generate its own evolving narrative of what a synthetic body can mean, look like and function as. The exhibition does this without promoting a specific rhetoric of the body as human, the synthetic as machine, or the biological as computable as is often seen in biotechnology discourse.