'it's hard to imagine' (2001)

While examining biological material in a medical research laboratory on a residency at St James' hospital, I observed the beauty and strangeness of life at a cellular level. By using different media, both simple charcoal drawings and a short video piece I tried to respond to and capture the wonder, fragility and power of living beings. I also aimed to visualise and question more problematic ideas; that in our consumer culture we increasingly view and reduce embryonic and genetic material to a patentable commodity, a way of thinking which directly imitates corporate materialism but often fails to address ethical, spiritual or environmental values.

installation
_{This work was first exhibited at rotor2 gallery, Valand, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2001.
It has since been exhibited in the Zoology dept, Trinity College (2004) and Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland (2004)}

The installation consisted of large charcoal wall drawings, biological photos and a looped 3 min. video projection set in adjoining room

Artworks

drawings
notes on drawings: using charcoal I responded to labelled diagrams of the early stages of chick embryo development. The works resist easy definition but I tried to look at these embryos in a manner different to that of the objective, rational view offered by science. The following quote may suggest the limitation of a singular rational view - 'having labeled a thing, you no longer see that thing, you see its label instead.'

Untitled (after observing chick embryos forming)(2001)
charcoal on paper 5x7ft, one of series of 2 large wall drawings:
price €1200 each

Drawings exhibited at Trinity College, Dublin, British Festival of Science, 2005

video
'it's hard to imagine...' _{(2001) 3 min. loop}

Genetic material can now be patented as an invention, inventions are property, vunerable to human desires...

this almost silent video was projected up large in a small, unlit room in Valand, Gothenburg Art college gallery, surrounding the viewer, the audio at times coming from various parts of the room.

spoken text

"...'it's hard to imagine....
i'm somewhere in here...
and you are too...
gene sequence, patent no. BR14Q..."

video visuals: video footage of moving human cells magnified under microscope: available in dv, vhs

background information in article, 'life in the round' :