conference & exhibition
The forthcoming exhibition is a sequel to Pascale Pollier’s successful and inspirational touring exhibition; Fabrica Vitae, and the accompanying conference Vesalius Continuum, of which she was the curator and chief organiser .
Whereas the touring exhibition “Fabrica Vitae’, (the fabric of life) gave great attention to the past, from Galen to Vesalius and from Darwin to the present day, Anatomy & Beyond will encourage a philosophical debate about our survival as an organic species and we will question and discuss what the future holds for
humanity, and ultimately all terrestrial life affected by our decisions.
Six very different artists who are intensely interested in considering these topics have been selected to develop new work for this exhibition.
This exhibition was made possible by the generous support of Mr Didzis Gavars and is hosted by the RSU Anatomy museum
Nina Sellars
Nina Sellars’ artwork is situated within the contemporary cross-disciplinary conversations in the arts and humanities about what constitutes the human in an age of bioengineering and regenerative medicine.
Andrew Carnie
Andrew Carnie is interested in the realities of the speculative suggestions about future anatomy that are being made now.
Eleanor Crook
Eleanor Crook ponders the origins of our scientific ambitions and counterfactual histories of art and science.
Mara G. Haseltine
We are at a unique time in the history of our planet when for perhaps the first time a sentient being is aware of the possibility that they are responsible for a mass extinction event, in fact, this will be the planet's 6th mass extinction event. I believe it is the job of an artist to reflect their times and this epic story of the life and death of the biosphere as we know it is something that has come to consume all of my work.
Joe Davis
BAITUL MA'MUR : HOUSE OF ANGELS
a collaborative project with Sarah Khan (Peshawar, Pakistan), Kyle Cromer (Stanford), George Church (Harvard), and others]
A centuries old tradition involves the practice of making angels by uttering a certain phrase in Arabic. According to this tradition, there is no limit to the number of angels which can be generated in this way, and it makes no difference how the phrase is iterated, whether it is spoken, written, or caused to be printed. The phrase is "Subhan Allah" (سبحان الله), which roughly translates to the word, "Hallelujah" in English. Using technology to reliably synthesize DNA and a new technique for high-density data storage, we have repeated this phrase (linked to creation of angels) in several simultaneous layers of informational symmetry on the head of a straight pin. In this way, the 0.75mm head of an average straight pin can hold over two hundred million billion angels. This work explores new forms of information keeping in DNA that can articulate nested geometries of Islamic art in biological form. We hope our gesture of generating so many angels may provide comfort in the times of a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives. This has also been a performance in bridge building, between art, mathematics, science, and spirituality across multiple expressions. We see humanity as one tribe, confronting the accumulating toll of human impacts on our shared environment and the problematic nature of our "best intentions," behind which all too often lurk terribly violent and destructive impulses that continue to shape human history.
Bryan Green
Bryan Green looks on with excitement as Science expresses doubts about its fundamental laws. The path forward is wonderfully wobbly as everything, especially physics, is in a poetic state of simultaneous flux and solidity which mirrors his thought process absolutely.
Pascale Pollier
Pascale Pollier’s journey is the attempt to grasp and understand the nature of reality and the nature of consciousness within that reality in relation to the mortal anatomical body hereby exploring the boundaries between life and death