Biomedicine on Display

I have just had a paper accepted for a very interesting symposium called Representing the Contentious, organized in London 14 October by Bronwyn Parry, Ania Dabrowska and Wellcome Trust People Award.

My presentation contains many images from my PhD Delineating Disease: a system for investigating Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva that were not presented to the public for reasons I will discuss.

Drawing hidden truths

How do you show disease in a way that reveals new insights, is clear, informative, is understandable to members of the public as well as to medical experts, and yet remains respectful to the subject? And what if this research is also set within the context of the medical museum where processes of preparation and display must also be considered?

In an artistic research PhD, a system using drawing as a valid research methodology to investigate a rare disease was developed. It presented a breadth of experiences of a disease called FOP and also revealed the disease within the context of museum conservation and display. The activity of drawing was shown to both initiate the act of looking and evidence the journey of understanding taken during this process. It involved actually spending time in the presence of people and objects, and forming relationships. This commitment maintained dignity and respect for people and objects, and the drawings were seen to be informative and sensitive. Drawing was used not merely to record, but as a participatory activity. Evidence showed the research revealed new insights, confirmed medical opinions about the progression of the disease and presented a far greater breadth of experiences of FOP than previously seen.

But the impact of this research also had unexpected consequences. Certain drawings were not included in the exhibition that formed part of the final research exposition, as they were deemed unsuitable. Medical experts were ‘shocked’ by drawings presenting the methods involved in preparation of donors with the disease. These processes integral to the research, hidden behind the scenes of the museum, were not what the experts had expected to see.

But the greatest impact was on the people with FOP. I was completely unprepared for their reactions when they saw drawings of the disease. Their responses to being drawn were positive. They appreciated someone looking at them without staring, spending time with them, bothering to see them. Despite having seen their own X-rays, CT scans and read medical books, when they saw other drawings of FOP they were shocked. Unlike medical imaging, which requires training and experience to ‘read’, they ‘understood’ the drawings and felt their clarity revealed the hidden, terrible truth. They acted like a mirror. Conversely, they also felt it was vital the research was shown to make people aware of this rare disease.  The responsibility of this is something that has weighed heavily on me. Despite the research being seen to be valid, insightful and useful, it also had unseen consequences. What form of exposition should these contentious elements take, should they be shown at all?

I would like to announce the programme for the forthcoming workshop on 29th and 30th September.

I have been overwhelmed by the amount of interest this workshop has generated as it grew from an idea to have a small informal seminar where the object is understood sensuously and placed as central to research, to become a two day international workshop. It is now more like a full time collaborative project working with all the presenters and their ideas, and an opportunity for objects in the collections at Medical Museion to be used in new ways.

Presenters come from research fields as diverse as design and technology, history of medicine, architecture, anthropology and choreography, and geographically span Denmark, Italy, Austria, England, Scotland, Sweden, United States, Egypt and United Arab Emirates.

The event is full and a reserve list for participants still wishing to come is growing longer. With the diversity of presenters and presentation formats, I think it will prove to be an interesting two days.

Programme:

THE SENSUOUS OBJECT WORKSHOP: how we experience material objects through our senses

THURSDAY 29^TH SEPTEMBER

09:00 Coffee and registration

09:30 Welcome – Lucy Lyons

09:40 Mats Fridlund – Security in a Box: Recovering Material and Discursive Phenomenologies of Forgotten Hopes and Fears

10:15 Secil Ugur – Tactile and visual perception on wearable technology

10:35 Discussion

11.05 – 11.35 COFFEE

11:35 Jan-Eric Olsén – Outlines of touch in the history of blindness collection

12:05 Discussion

12.25 – 1.25 LUNCH

1:25 James Edmonson – Making sense of sound: the early stethoscope and the physical examination

1:45 Linda Thomson – Can object handling make you healthy?

2:05 Discussion

2.25 – 2.55 COFFEE

2:55 Laura Gonzalez – The material sensuousness of a hysteric’s performance

3:25 Discussion

3:50 Bernd Kraeftner – Who cares?

4:10 Jennifer Nomura van der Grinten – From Face to Clitoris

4:30 Discussion

5.00 – 6.00 DRINKS RECEPTION

During the reception “Video Lab”, a short film by Astrid Møller-Olsen will be shown

FRIDAY 30^TH SEPTEMBER

09:00 Ansa Lønstrup – Mediate Auscultation: listening to the “voices” of the human and other bodies through the stethoscope and through percussion.

09:30 Discussion

09:55 Eduardo Abrantes – A voice as a sound object?

10:15 Brian Dougan – A sensuous reciprocity

10:35 Discussion

10:55 – 11:20 COFFEE

11:20 Per Roar – performance – This is my body 2     (In Reception room)

11:50 Discussion

12:05 Carsten Friberg – Body and Space

12:35 Discussion

12:55 – 1:40 LUNCH

1:40 Marlene Little –Tacit encounter: Materiality and the sensuous object

2:00 Louise Whiteley – Scan, scanner, scanned                 (In X-ray room)

2:20 Discussion

2.40 – 3.00 COFFEE

3:00 Anette Stenslund – Abra-Cadaver: Aseptic (un)covering of life and death

3:30 Discussion

3:55 Anne Krefting – Smell and Narration: Objects as a performative structure

4:15 Jenny Carlson – Sensuous slurry

4:35 Discussion

CLOSE

Here’s the final (and somewhat extended) call for presentations at the workshop ‘The Sensuous Object to be held at Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen, 29-30 September, 2011

‘The Sensuous Object’ is an interdisciplinary, participatory workshop concerned with ways we actually engage with objects and aimed at researchers in all disciplines interested in the materiality of actual artefacts and ways of understanding objects through the senses (smell and touch, ambience, aesthetic, visual thinking, tacit knowledge, sound and seduction).

1. An actual, material object must be central and a present part of the workshop. This artefact should be or relate in some way to objects found in medical museums.

You are welcome to arrange to choose an object from Medical Museion collections,
or bring your own,
or if you send a photo of an object from another medical museum I can try and find an equivalent here,
or if we can’t find it you can use an image of an object.

2. Engagement is vital; emphasis is on demonstration, experimentation and participation.

3. This is an opportunity for presenters to try out ideas and test new formats in a friendly environment where the starting point for discussion is the object present rather than previous research results.

We anticipate the definition of sensuous and approaches to presenting understanding of materiality of objects to be varied, even experimental!

How we experience and understand objects as sensuous objects that have been realized, produced, consumed through and by our senses, and how they impact on us and how we impact on them, are just a few of the expected discussion topics. By inviting participants to choose actual objects and use them as central to their presentations, the aim is to challenge established concepts and reveal new possibilities in our experiencing of and understanding through objects, using sensuous approaches. It will provide opportunity for presenters to test ideas, try out new formats of presentation and discussion, and examine their own research through the sensuous object.

The idea for this workshop began as a way to research objects from Medical Museion’s collections and for the objects themselves to form the basis of further research. Medical Museion is a university museum at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, with an extensive collection of historical medical objects from the 18th through 20th centuries and with internationally award-winning exhibitions. Its field is the history of health and disease in a cultural perspective, with a focus on the material and iconographic culture of recent biomedicine. Research at Medical Museion is seen as essential to underpinning university teaching strategies for collection and conservation of medical heritage, exhibition making, and other material-based communication practices.

Speakers are invited to present their understanding of an object in terms of their methodological approaches and areas of research. Research areas of confirmed participants include senses of smell and touch, ambience, aesthetic, visual thinking, tacit knowledge, sound, and seduction.

Confirmed speakers:
Laura Gonzalez (Glasgow School of Art)
Ansa Lonstrup (University of Aarhus)
Anette Stenslund (Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen)
Jan-Eric Olsén (Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen)
Carsten Friberg (Aarhus School of Architecture)
Mats Fridlund (University of Gothenburg)

Organisers:
Postdoc Lucy Lyons (lucyly@sund.ku.dk) and PhD student Anette Stenslund (astenslund@sund.ku.dk), Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen, 18 Fredericiagade, Copenhagen (www.museion.ku.dk).

More information:
If you are interested in presenting, please email a 200 word abstract by 15 JULY. If you would like to participate but do not wish to present, please email a paragraph about your area of research by 5 September. Contact: lucyly@sund.ku.dk.

‘The Sensuous Object’ workshop is free and Medical Museion will provide tea and coffee breaks and host lunch on both days and a drinks reception on 29 September. Participants will need to arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodation.

Who would have thought that the torrential rain during the dramatic storms seen in Copenhagen this weekend would have had such devastating consequences? The collection stores here at Medical Museion bore the brunt of it. In some places the water rose to 90 cm.  Dedicated members of the team arrived on Saturday and worked in the evening while the rooms were pumped. On Sunday, many others arrived to plough through the black gooey sludge and salvage more precious boxes.

On Monday, we were organized into groups, some carrying heavy boxes filled with flood damaged artefacts that still remained in the basements. Water was still leaking out of the soaking walls and the humidity did not help the situation. Others have been removing bones from sodden boxes, attempting to dry them a little and repack them temporarily in safer conditions before they will be packed more permanently. Paper, medical photos and other precious documentation was carefully peeled apart and placed between conservation papers and put under weights.  The smell is terrible and the actual cleaning of the damaged rooms will be a whole new and different problem. One floor has completely split open and cracks have appeared on the walls of these beautiful old buildings.

Everyone is working to salvage what he or she can. There is great sadness, determination and a sense of camaraderie.

How to display artefacts that cannot be touched or sometimes even seen, is an issue that has cropped up frequently in museums, particularly in medical museums wanting to exhibit molecular, chemical and genomic items.

Thinking about this was part of the inspiration for the Sensuous Object Workshop in September here at Medical Museion. So it was good timing that in the space of one day I received two emails. The first was about The Museum of Non-Visible Art and the second was a call to submit work for an exhibition at the Manifest Gallery called Go Ahead…Touch Me!

Both events are held in New York City:

The Museum of Non-Visible Art (MONA) comprises of artworks that are not visible but only conceptualized. The work is in the form of ideas that are described. It is through the description and experience of the imagination that the artworks are understood.

The Manifest gallery invites the opposite. Described as ‘An international exhibit exploring works that invite physical interaction’ the Go Ahead…Touch Me! exhibition seeks to display the physical, not just the conceptual.

This exhibition is on until September 9^th — I wonder if I could interest someone from the exhibition to come and demonstrate the event at the Sensuous Object Workshop a few weeks after this.

I am not convinced either of these are solutions, but they make one think and suggest that perhaps art can show museums the way.

I have just had a proposal accepted by Nordisk Sommeruniversitet who will be holding their Summer Symposium in Falsterbo, Sweden, July 30th - August 7th, 2011. NSU is organized by a Swedish non-profit organization sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers. It focuses on fostering cross-disciplinary research networks in the Nordic countries

There are eight study circles and I will be doing a practical workshop in study circle #7, Artistic research – strategies for embodiment.

The study circle will invite distinguished researchers and artists in the field, who have contributed to this emerging discipline. Building on the experiences from the upcoming anthology of the previous study circle 7, the new study circle will end with a new publication. This publication will focus on sharing methodologies and specific examples of artistic research and dissemination through applying multimedia. The aim is to reach out to our peers and art students interested in the field of Artistic Research.

Researchers and artists from all fields will take part in discussions about development of strategies for embodying and disseminating the experiences drawn from the field of Artistic Research on the theme: Strategies for Embodiment within Artistic Research; questioning and probing ways of embodying and communicating artistic research processes and their outcomes.

Previously I gave a paper at the NSU Winter Symposium held at Arkitektskolen in Aarhus. This unusual and lively three day symposium included choreographers, theatre and dance researchers, sculptors and animators and filmmakers, photographers, philosophers, art historians and drawers from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, UK, Greece, USA, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Czech Republic.

A healthy array of PhD candidates presented. Some used the symposium as a platform to ask questions around their own research and others looked for responses and criticism. Elina Saloranta a doctoral student at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts presented her paper ’What does silence sound like?’. This included a video and a script of a conversation between herself and her sound technician Eduardo Abrantes, a PhD student at the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen, who investigated the phenomenology of voice as a medium for sharing in his presentation ’On the uses of the voice-sharing through resonance and other metaphors’.

Some like Angela Rogers who uses drawing to investigate dialogic interaction, held workshops. Others, like Francis Halsall a lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Art Theory at National College of Art and Design, Dublin, were art historians and theorists but not practitioners at all. His paper ’Embodiment and Drawing: De Duve on Robert Morris’ caused lively debate amongst those of us who are academics and also practitioners.

My paper, ’Drawing your way into understanding’ examined how we can come to know something by drawing it. It claims that the relationship that develops between object and viewer that occurs during the process of drawing, is central to the viewer gaining greater understanding of an object. Furthermore, the nature of drawing means this information can be communicated to others offering new insight and knowledge. The use of drawing here is based on a simple but poignant premise: that we do not look at things closely enough. By not looking we don’t see and without seeing we do not gain knowledge. I presented evidence of drawing as a research method based on previous investigations into understanding the experiences of a rare disease, Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva and from data taken from groups of non-artists who have used drawing as a method for investigating medical artefacts.

The NSU Summer Symposium takes place over five days. The first three days will focus on ‘knowledge generation’ and the final two will focus on ‘knowledge sharing’ and issues regarding the often problematic question of the means of dissemination of the knowledge generated through artistic research in the academic context and beyond.

Here is my proposal for the Summer Symposium.

Engaging with the unfamiliar

This is a proposal for a practical participatory workshop. The aim is to bring to the attention of the group, something unfamiliar which they will then have an opportunity to get to know.

Using observational investigative methods, the group will be asked to engage with an object. The journey of how they come to understand the object will be evidenced through the phenomenological activity of drawing. By this I mean the action of moving the tip of a pencil on paper in correspondence to the observational investigation they make. The emphasis is not on the drawing as a noun – a finished artefact, but on the verb – the action of making and experiencing the encounter they have with the object.

The question I will be asking is, where is knowledge embodied? Is it purely in the act of looking, in the act of looking while drawing (looking ‘through’ the tip of the pencil) or is knowledge embodied in the realized outcomes?

I understand knowledge to be embodied within this fugitive collection of experiences that formulate a breadth of understanding through each unique encounter. But I would like to find out where and how participants come to understand an object they encounter. Perhaps they will confirm my theories or maybe they have a whole new perspective on how actively engaging with an object can bring knowledge.

Study circle #7 then aims to publish an anthology in 2013 focusing on communicating methodologies, specific examples of artistic research, and the dissemination of knowledge through various media and multimedia solutions.

Proposals for presentations in various formats were welcomed, ranging from demonstrations and presentations/excerpts of artistic work, to theoretical reflections in the form of short papers and suggestions for panel discussions.

I am currently researching a piece on rollators. Based on artistic research investigating the aesthetics and materiality of these essential but perhaps under appreciated objects I am struggling with finding some further information.

It is generally accepted that the first rollator appeared in the 1970s and was designed by Bernt Leander from Sweden. There is no record of a ‘first’ rollator and no history of the initial designs. Unable to find a person responsible for design and manufacture of rollators  I emailed the general Swedish inquiry contact at Invacare, the overall worldwide distributor but I have had no reply. I know that Dolomite was taken over by Invacare and their factory is in Anderstorp. A specific question I asked is regarding the range of colours available, particularly in 1997 in the Dolomite Futura range.

Thomas has kindly emailed his science/tech colleagues in Sweden but I wondered if anyone else might also have information. Academic texts are few and are mainly concerned with the effects on the joints of rollator users and effects on patients with other health issues and in assisting rehabilitation. There is very little about the actual object and its history.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for further information? Any help would be greatly appreciated

On Friday 13^th May, Adrian Bertoli, Morten Hillgaard Bülow and I attended the University of Copenhagen Center for Healthy Aging (CEHA) retreat day at the DGI Congress Center here in Copenhagen and we have decided to bring our experiences of the day together in one blog post.

Lucy says:
Everyone involved in each of CEHA’s five programmes was required to participate and it was definitely a day of two halves. CEHA Managing Director Lene Juel Rasmussen introduced the proceedings and her talk was followed by short overviews given by each of the programme leaders. The morning was dominated by traditional PowerPoint based presentations used to display schematics, charts, diagrams and arrows that sometimes became overcomplicated and confusing. Then PhDs and postdoctoral researchers presented research highlights from each programme. One very interesting presentation was by PhD student Aske Juul Lassen on Programme 5 who described his field studies and collaboration with No Age innovative solutions for elderly people in his research into technologies and communities for the active elderly

After lunch we were split into groups and invited to join in ‘The Hunt for the Elixir of Life’ – a cross-disciplinary dialogue. This was organized by the young researchers and involved the groups going into a series of rooms where different scenarios were enacted. In the ‘TV/Fitness’ room an elderly man watching TV phoned his busy daughter while she was working out at the gym. In the ‘Nursing Home’ room an elderly diabetic resident was shown being left to eat her lunch alone. In ‘General Practice’ room the scenario played was of a stressed, pregnant woman and a clock watching GP. In the ‘Chess Club’ room an elderly man playing chess with his regular partner became frustrated about starting to lose games and in the ‘Work Place’ room cigarette-smoking workmen with backaches had a health assessment.

Each different scenario played out gave rise to discussion on different aspects of ageing research. The overall question was how we might go about asking questions or researching topics raised in the scenarios from across all our disciplines. This part of the day was a great success and in my opinion the ‘Chess Club’ room worked best. Here, not only was a scenario enacted but we were asked to engage in an activity. We were given five cards with pictures on. We had to choose the top two cards we felt represented things to help with the problem shown in the performance and explain our reasons for choosing them. This participatory activity led to good discussion and the chance for all to voice opinions not just a few who had previously dominated conversations.

At times the differences between wet and dry sciences were seen as a hindrance and there were still signs of hierarchy between disciplines. Though it is hard to tell whether the aim of interdisciplinarity across the programmes will be achieved, it was valuable to bring all members of CEHA together in one space.

Adrian says:
A day of two halves is a very apt summary of the Center for Healthy Aging’s retreat. I can appreciate the need to have an overview of the five programmes, and the importance of allowing young researchers to present research highlights. It was nice to hear what goes on within the Center, I personally knew little about the other programmes, but the presentation format means that for the most part the researchers remained faceless names on the screen. The afternoon was a great success, the creativity and ‘unorthodox’ method of engaging researchers has set the bar high for future CEHA events.

What was missing for me was a chance to do more informal networking and socializing, especially among PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers. It is one thing to know the general research interests of the programmes, but another to know more about the people behind these. If we are to bridge the differences between the wet and dry sciences and create a common language, perhaps more informal channels would be effective. It might be a cultural difference in choice of words, but when I picture a retreat, I think of various social activities and games, chances to see the lighter side of your colleagues. This happened to some extent in the afternoon sessions, but was still somewhat plagued by power dynamics between senior and junior staff. There was a social hour afterwards; perhaps people were a bit tired after a full day of activities as not many stuck around. Even fewer of us made it out afterwards where we went out for dinner and drinks.

On the whole the day was interesting and entertaining, the venue was nice and we were well catered to in terms of food and drink. I just came away at the end of the day not knowing much more about the people who are on paper my colleagues at the Center for Healthy Aging. We are physically isolated among various campuses, the challenge becomes how to make the most of the unfortunately too seldom times we are all gathered together.

Morten says:
As one of the organizers of the last part of the CEHA Retreat, I was very curious about how it would turn out. From the start when we were asked to organize the afternoon, our small group of PhDs and postdocs all agreed that we wanted to do something different than another line of talks or poster-sessions. I think it was Bjarke Oxlund who first came up with (and was given responsibility for) the idea of a ‘treasure-hunt’  – which was not actually a hunt for the elixir of life, but rather a hunt for interdisciplinarity, which we had been told was to be the theme of the day.

In this hunt we wanted to avoid thinking in research programmes and instead think of themes or situations that could be viewed from different disciplinary perspectives. And we wanted to facilitate discussions that would illuminate differences and similarities between disciplines – and preferably, in the process, show the value of each research perspective and how they might fertilise each other.

I don’t know if we succeeded, but the process of coming up with these themes and situations in itself was a challenge and a learning experience. Setting it up to involve participants demanded serious considerations – our main worry was that nobody would want to discuss these issues or that they would think the whole set up too light hearted and oppose it. After all, we wanted this event to bring participants ‘outside’ the boundaries of the traditional disciplines; outside their scientific comfort zone, so to speak. For some participants this did indeed seem to imply that what we did was also un-scientific (in the broad sense of the word). It was sometimes difficult to keep the discussions going or to go up against a certain understanding of what can or what cannot count as relevant (research) questions.

But there were also mostly great discussions and interesting topics coming up so that the allotted 20 minutes per group often felt too short a time. People were just warming up to the subject of the workshop when you had to rush them out the door to receive the next group. The groups were very different – group dynamics were central to how the discussions went, and actually seemed much more important than what disciplines were represented.

This for me stressed the importance of having an open attitude towards other people and disciplines and of having enough time to develop this openness in a suitable context. For interdisciplinary discussions to work, this seemed an important take-home message.

On my continuing investigation into the aesthetics of rollators I was told about the Danish Queen Ingrid. After falling and breaking her hip, she appeared in the summer of 1998 for the first time publically using a rollator. Photographs and news footage of her shows her dressed in a glamorous couture gown and pushing a matching coloured rollator. Going to a gala wearing her prom dress and matching rollator and proudly escorted by her grandson Prince Frederik became a powerful image that encouraged others not to be ashamed of their rollators.

Determined to draw this culturally and historically important artifact I found that there was an exhibition about Queen Ingrid’s life at the Amalienborg Museum.

In the final room many of Queen Ingrid’s clothes were on display and in a long glass display cabinet that filled the entire wall of one room was her famous prom dress and there, peeking out shyly from behind the dress that lumpy, squat rollator lurked.

The accompanying sign reads:

“Rollator. With advanced age Queen Ingrid experienced difficulty in walking. In 1998 she attended a public event for the first time with a rollator-a wheeled walking frame. This had great significance for elderly people in the country, who then, with Queen Ingrid as role model, no longer felt that it was embarrassing to use a rollator”

I was slightly disappointed to find that the rollator was partially hidden as though embarrassed of being on display.

I wrote to ask for permission to draw it and was informed that this was not in fact the Queen’s rollator but an exact replica. In further conversations all was explained. This is not the actual one used by Queen Ingrid because, as happens in the case of every Danish citizen, when she died the original rollator was returned to the commune and once more became the property of the health service. No one will ever know if they are using the same rollator as the Queen Mother once used. The one on display is the same model manufactured at the same time and representative of the one she used. It is an Opal Futura 450 made by Dolomite and manufactured in early 1997 so was an up to the minute model when used by Queen Ingrid. Importantly the colour, which is mint, was not made to match her dress. The material for the dress was found to match the rollator.

The staff at the Amalienborg museum were incredibly helpful. Every morning I would arrive just after 8am and the rollator was carefully removed from its case and placed in the middle of the room for me. I was then left to draw until 11am when the museum opened.

Queen Ingrid’s rollator is not ‘special’, it was not specially designed or commissioned or bespoke made to royal requirements. She used the same rollator as anyone else but chose a bright mint coloured one. And like other users, she probably felt it was ‘her’ rollator and relied on it in the same way as any other user would.

Upon arrival at Lotte residential care home on 7th December, I was greeted with the trappings of a party. The dining room had been recently decorated with candles and baubles for Christmas and the tables were set with Danish flags and napkins in honour of a resident’s birthday.

A chair was placed for me at a table. I sat next to Ingrid and opposite Inge and Nis. I had met Nis the previous week but he had no memory of me. He was very pleased to talk and introduced Inge to me as his fiancée.  Ingrid remembered me but did not recollect that I had drawn her. She seemed very pleased to see the drawing of herself when I showed it to her.

After eating together, I chose to depict Inge and Nis sitting next to each other in one drawing. Inge was very elegant and beautiful. Her silver hair still had a luster and a stylish wave. She wore a black fur sleeveless body warmer and a shirt with fashionable wide collar and cuffs. Strings of large beads and a set of smaller beads adorned her neck. Her mottled discoloured arms denote cellulitis but her hands did not seem to have signs of arthritis. She is 100 years old.

Nis always sits next to Inge. His adoration of her was obvious and on the day of my visit he was very proud to show her off to me. Nis who is 97, boasted about Inge’s age. He was an architect and was keen to look at my drawings. Every time I looked at Nis to draw him, he would make a funny face at me and chuckle. His high arching eyebrows betrayed his cheeky nature and his large cheeks became lost in the large ribbed neck of his cosy Nordic sweater.

They ate their meals; Nis had a special one as he is a vegetarian. They had a glass of wine and then enjoyed birthday cake and coffee.  Whilst both were rather hard of hearing they were clear and articulate.

After drawing Nis and Inge I drew Ruth. She had wanted me to draw her for the last couple of weeks. She is a youngster for Lotte, a mere 78 years old and had been there for 4 years. She is wheelchair bound and has restricted use in her right side, almost none on her left side and has problems speaking clearly but her intentions are always clear. Determined to perform the tasks of eating and drinking for herself as much as possible, Ruth was keen to participate.

Before we began she made a request, that I wait until someone came with her false teeth. It was very touching that she wanted to look her best for the drawing. She spent as much time as she could grinning at me, smiling as if for the camera but trying to sustain it through the long drawn out session. Her face is small and her petite body seemed to be even smaller in the big wheelchair she uses. Ruth’s already large eyes were enlarged through the thick lenses of her glasses and they gazed at me, smiling at me throughout the time I drew.

I returned to Lotte on 12^th January. I sat with Karen. She was a petite lady aged 97 with her white hair cut into a smart bob style. She had fallen before Christmas and gashed her forehead and had required 16 stitches but seemed to be quite happy that it was healing well. Lines were deeply etched around her cheeks and eyes and her strong nose seemed disproportionate to her small delicate face and large eyes.  Her mouth was in constant flux, never resting and never maintaining the same position for long.

She received a letter from her daughter, an artist living in California and only needed a little help to open the envelope. She was keen to show me a photo of her because I am an artist too. Sitting in her cosy cream cardigan she seemed very gentle but very able. Her pride in her daughter’s work was clear and her enjoyment of being drawn was obvious.

x

Visiting Lotte residential care home is always an experience. The first thing you notice upon entering is there are no signs warning you of something or pictograms and ideograms giving instructions. The next thing you notice is the lack of plastic. No carers in wipe down aprons, no wipe clean table clothes, plastic beakers or bibs. The tables have tablecloths, the residents have lunch as anyone would, using normal cutlery and china plates and they have beer or wine with their meals. This is not an institutionalized feeling care home.

My first session of drawing there was on November 24^th. After sitting and speaking with the delightful Nis who was an architect responsible for the main design around Rådhuspladsen, I sat next to Ingrid as we all played Bingo (Danish: Banko). Ingrid is 96. I had noticed her on my first visit because she wore a bright red, star shaped hair slide.

Ingrid was again wearing her star shaped hair slide. She was curious about my large hooped earrings and I pointed out when I am 96 I will probably still be wearing them. Her haircut was in a very smart bob style, which fell forward as she leaned over her cards to place buttons on the numbers being called. She has arthritis in her hands and the joints were swollen and enlarged, pulling the surrounding flesh taught across her hands. The hair caught up in her slide fell in a layer shorter than the rest of her hair and the tip of one arm of the star was partially obscured by the white strands.

I sat next to her; she was at the head of the table concentrating on her game, I sat on her right. I watched her and drew her while she was engaged in her activity. Several times she checked with a carer on her left which number were being called, just to be sure she had heard correctly. Once in a while she looked up and caught my eye. She smiled and shook her head. She was surprised and bemused that I was looking at her so intensely. She did not think she would be very interesting to draw.

She was. There were a great number of deep wrinkles on her face. Her brow and forehead had lines so deep they almost seemed to separate areas of her skin. Carved like plots of farrowed land. Shapes formed under her eyebrows and around the top of her nose and the deep lines etched by her lips formed long flowing crevasses. The teardrop droop of her jowl rested low and the extra flesh under her chin swept down by her neck. The shawl thrown around her shoulders had a fringe and was knotted at her sternum.

I asked her what career she had been in. She replied she was nothing special, just an ordinary person who never did anything special, just looked after the home and raised her children. That’s a pretty special thing in my opinion.

Rollator drawings, 30^th September – 4^th October 2010:

Continuing my appreciation of the aesthetics of seemingly ugly and mundane artefacts we associate with ageing, I investigated a second rollator.

This was a contemporary model. It had a clear plastic tray, a wire shopping basket and four wheels rather than three for extra stability. It was squatter, sturdier and in some ways even uglier than the earlier three wheel model. The hidden complexities and detailing within the design meant it took much longer to draw than I had anticipated.  I intentionally drew it from the position someone would see it if they were approaching it to use it.

The moulded plastic on the handles had been textured for extra grip and had an organic quality. The bolts and connections remained evident but were more refined.

What I found was how much I appreciated the qualities that I had previously missed. The curve of the front bumper and the connection on the front wheel shafts were particularly elegant and the sweep of the handles, handgrips and ergonomic brakes were much more aesthetically thought out than I had initially noticed. The light reflecting on the clear plastic tray formed bright curves and rainbow patterns in contrast to the opaque density of the black mat handles and shelf. The network formed by the basket was highly detailed and the intersecting areas had been welded neatly to form the grid of the shopping basket.

Interestingly, on the back of the rear metal legs were two orange rectangular strips of reflective material to ensure safety at night. The four wheels were not as fat as in the earlier model and the two at the back remained fixed whilst the two front wheels acted more like a shopping trolley.

Other things had not changed. The cuffs around the wheels remained the same, the mechanism for folding had not changed and the brake system appeared to be similar. The handles used to adjust the height of had become elongated and needed less effort to use.

Perhaps because these objects are so new, they are too close to us to be perceived as historical objects so have yet to become ‘artefacts’ i.e. something worthy of being presented within the auspices of a curated museum display where they would be expected to attract crowds who wish to engage with them. What would a member of the public hope to see when looking at an object such as this?

When objects are utilitarian, essential to many and in such common usage they can easily become invisible. The rollator is associated with assisting those who do not suffer from a terrible incurable disease but simply aids those who are just ageing as we all are, and need a little extra help. Is it because this is so uneventful, so usual we are not interested in looking at items associated with this natural process? Is it because the materials are thought of as utilitarian and not beautiful, or is it because we choose to turn away and not see something we find distasteful or fear but certainly do not welcome and embrace – the everyday process of ageing?

Rollator drawings  27^th–28^th, 28^th–29^th September 2010:

When I began drawing the rollator I asked myself why I was drawing something that was so boring, so ugly with no interesting features.

I was reminded of the talk Nurin Veis, Deputy Head Sciences – Science Communication and Senior Curator of Human Biology and Medicine at Museum Victoria, Australia, gave at the EAMHMS conference. In her talk about issues in displaying the cochlear implant, Nurin stated that the problem lies with our insistence in seeing the ‘black box’ item as ugly and not suitable as a museum artefact. Rather than trying to avoid it, rewrite it change or replace it with something explaining something about it, she asked why couldn’t we just accept it and learn to appreciate it? Maybe it is our job to see the aesthetic qualities of these ‘black box’ objects rather than try and avoid them.

The rollator’s use is essential to many, there is no doubt about that, but as an object, as a thing, it is so unappealing and uninteresting. It would not take long to draw such a simple plain thing.

Or so I thought. As I began I realized that the plastics had degenerated and the handles and wheels had an organic, sticky feeling to them. The way the brakes were attached to the wheels were far more complex than I had at first seen, but they were also connected by crude looking bolts. Mass produced steel rods had a feeling of hand madeness at the apex where they joined and the whole object took on a far more complicated nuance and styling than I had realized.

After 2 days, the amount of detail I had noticed changed my view of this object from boring and ugly to beautiful and fascinating. It’s complexities were hidden behind my prejudices and became seen clearly through my making the effort to spend time actually looking at this object and to stop making huge assumptions about it. How it worked, how it was made and the aesthetic of the object became more and more apparent during the two days I spent drawing it. Paying attention to such a modest and overlooked ungainly looking object showed it to be far more than I had at first perceived.

Overlooking such a vital yet seemingly unattractive object highlighted the need to spend time looking and building relationships with artefacts. The rollator has become, in my opinion a very beautiful object and reactions from others have been surprising also. Others have seen far more beauty in the drawing than they thought would ever be found in such an object. Maybe they will re-look at them and see them in a new way.

So many things associated with the ageing process are thought to be boring, ugly, utilitarian and uninteresting to look at. I am discovering for myself how wrong this assumption is. The toothless skull, so iconic of the image of ageing is fascinating and beautiful rather than ridiculous and unattractive.

Objects that help and assist the elderly, items used to test for ailments associated with ageing and objects used for treating them are all seen as having little aesthetic value as objects in their own right. And often the ageing population, the people themselves, are not regarded as being aesthetic so ingrained is it that beauty is connected with youth and newness.

Spending time looking at them, overcoming assumptions about them, elevating them from mere boring utilitarian thing to being experienced as unique, beautiful and fascinating encounters helps to re-see aspects of ageing in a much wider and more positive way.

Founded in 2002, the Association for Medical Humanities (AMH) aims to promote, within the UK and the Republic of Ireland, the medical humanities in education, healthcare and research. It has links with the BMJ journal Medical Humanities and has organized annual academic conferences since 2003. Courses on Medical Humanities are increasing in the UK and can be found at University College London, Durham University, King’s College London, University of Aberdeen, University of Leicester, University of Glasgow, University of Bristol, Birkbeck College University of London, and University of Swansea.

On Monday 5th July the AMH 2010 conference titled ‘Humanities at the Cutting Edge: Conversations between surgery, pathology, the humanities & the arts’ opened in Truro, Cornwall, with an evening reception and talk. There were already two options, either attend a keynote talk by heart surgeon Francis Wells on his research into Leonardo da Vinci at the ‘Knowledge Spa’ Truro, or attend artist David Cotterrell’s keynote talk about medicine in conflicted spaces at Tate St Ives. I wanted to go to both.

After a plenary and coffee on Tuesday morning, presentations were split into workshops and papers. The choice was between two workshops and a dizzying array of 21 presentations grouped into three themes. Theme 1 was Surgery, pathology and identity; Theme 2 was The ‘pathological’ and the ‘normal’; and Theme 3 was Humanities and arts as health interventions. Each theme had two or three groups of three speakers in each group. So already before lunch on the Tuesday, 21 people had presented papers and two groups of people had run workshops.

Some of the interesting presentations I missed included art in hospitals, patient communication through theatre, the wonder of pathology and workshops on drawing the body and documentary filming of surgery. I listened to three very good papers in a group from Theme 3. After lunch I attended a useful practical workshop run by the editor of Medical Humanities and missed hearing any of the 18 papers presented that afternoon. On Wednesday the same problem occurred with two workshops running at the same time as 18 speakers’ presentations. The workshop I wished to attend the most ran at the same time as my presentation. It was about pop up surgical theatres and allowing surgeons not just to practise but to rehearse.

There were just too many parallel sessions, too many themes and groups within themes and simultaneous workshops. Some delegates gave presentations to empty rooms with no one else but the other two speakers present. At least people came to my talk. There were many interesting themes, viewpoints and areas of research but too many to hear.

At the plenary on Tuesday morning a psychiatrist presented research on coding and categorizing that was welcomed by medics and greeted with dismay by artists. Her method of labeling patients in distress using a process of narrative writing had the appearance of berating creativity and imagination by placing patients within a negative category of behaviour. Perhaps this is where the notion of subjectivity and adaptability to take into account the uniqueness of people in different situations may have helped.

However two papers given by medics saw creativity and subjectivity as positive. One, a mature graduating medical student discussed the tricky subject of finding cancer beautiful. Emotive and well researched it was fascinating to hear concerns from a medic that would usually be heard amongst artists. In another talk a GP discussed art being so important in his life he took a PG Cert in Fine Art and then an MA in medical humanities. He confessed to having spent years using a pseudonym and creating an underground comic depicting the dark humour and cruelty of his experiences in his surgery. Believing art to be a great way to express and communicate medical issues, he has left his job to become a full time artist. He recently organized the ‘Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels’ conference at UCL and runs a website dedicated to Graphic Medicine.

The best part for me was the Wednesday plenary presentation. This was a performance by Peggy Shaw, a cross dressing, lesbian grandmother in her sixties working in collaboration with the Clod Ensemble, three musicians playing violin, cello and keyboard. Her show, ‘Must: the inside story’, saw Peggy dressed in a man’s suit and intoning poetic dialogue, some in beat with the accompanying music about her body’s history and experiences. Her deep New York accent described her mother’s mental illness and treatments, her own experience of giving birth, and sensations of touch and significance of bones. She lyrically chanted and sometimes sang in front of screens depicting cells and X-rays and other medical imagery. Engaging and vulnerable I had not expected to find her performative method of description and exploration of the body so powerful and enjoyable.

The AMH 2010 conference gave an opportunity for disciplines across the breadth of medical humanities to meet and talk and importantly listen to research and work undertaken from within fields of surgery, visual arts, pathology, clinical practice, creative writing, poetry, history, sociology, philosophy and general practice. Sometimes this worked and sometimes there were slight clashes or moments of misunderstanding. Medical doctors and artists and writers expressed concerns. Some felt incapable of reading arts & humanities articles without adequate knowledge of the art cannon or knowledge of Heidegger for example. However, researchers and practitioners in arts & humanities have often had to immerse themselves in the language of medical articles and find out the meanings for themselves.

There were diverse practical workshops, a breadth of visual and literary arts on display and a wide range of academic papers. I really wanted to see more as the papers I saw were good and the people I spoke to where diverse and fascinating. I wish I hadn’t missed other presentations and workshops which also sounded really interesting.

Being invited to join a drawing workshop usually elicits one of two reactions. Either enthusiasm because the person likes to draw or they think the idea sounds interesting or different. The other response is to dismiss the idea completely.

This reaction seems to be prompted by two main preconceptions about drawing. The first is that it is arty or simplistic, a bit of fun so would have no relevance to other more serious research activities.

The other preconception seems to stem surprisingly from fear. ‘But I can’t draw’ or ‘I haven’t drawn for years’ come the plaintiff explanations for foregoing the chance to partake in any workshops. The fear of being seen to be unaccomplished at the seemingly simple yet daunting task of drawing has caused a surprising lack of takers to participate in the project. Yet the response to outcomes, to evidence of the activity of drawing offering a valid method of investigation, and to the activity itself once a person engages in the process is encouragingly positive.

So what is going wrong?

I think the answer is the ‘D’ word, as in the word ‘drawing.’ Drawing is both an outcome and an activity. It is probably most common upon hearing the word drawing to think of it as describing an accomplished object consisting of an artistic convergence of lines, marks and shapes that form something visual on a surface which can be recognized in some way as being what one thinks of in general terms as a drawing.

This ‘drawing’ is a noun. Perhaps less considered is the use of the word ‘drawing’ as a verb, the doing word, drawing as an action, an activity something to participate in. If the first definition, the noun, is the more prominent and the one that sticks in the mind of someone invited to participate, then the expectations that are associated with this noun come into play. These expectations of the outcome of drawing can be unrealistically huge. They tend to start with Leonardo da Vinci and work their way down.

So it seems that when I think I am asking someone to join in a drawing workshop, they think I am saying ‘come and try and draw like Leonardo da Vinci in front of your peers.’ I see the problem.

The workshops focus on drawing as a phenomenological activity. By this, I mean that the activity, the act of looking and drawing as you look at an object, forces you to engage more fully with the object. This takes time and means a relationship has to develop between the viewer and the object. The time allows more attention to be spent looking and drawing. More detail is observed, more things specific to the object become noticed and the experience becomes richer and more personal. Understanding of the object, as an object grows and by ‘drawing your way into understanding’ the encounter, new insights can be achieved. The object is experienced and understood more fully through the activity of drawing it.

But this whole process is a practical and tacit methodology. The skill of looking and ‘touching’ the object or ‘seeing’ it through the tip of the pencil is not always easy. It is one that is best explained by doing. It is a kinaesthetic activity where the information and knowledge gained comes through doing rather than from instruction. In this way, the act of drawing allows someone to participate in actively gaining their own information for themselves rather than passively receive information via information panels or verbal instruction etc.

Spending time drawing a closely observed object is not a hugely complicated idea. It is actually a very simple notion. To begin at the beginning, with the actual object before you and just look and record and interpret your experience of this as it occurs by drawing, is a very humble action. Yet it is one that is often overlooked. Maybe because it is so basic an idea it can be seen as less important than other methods. Technology moves forward and the type of images we are now able to produce through scientific imaging are incredible. But these are not images we as individuals can make. They require training, understanding of equipment, experience knowing how to decipher the shapes and colours created to formulate clear data. We can all however, look at something and make marks on a page with a pencil at the same time. The traditional technology of hand/eye coordination and observational skill combined with the action of moving a pencil across a surface is one that is sometimes seen as being too old fashioned, too boring and simple to warrant consideration. Yet when it is suggested, there is something about the process that causes some people to become anxious and back away.

The outcomes of the activity may vary depending on skill and practice but the phenomenological activity of drawing can offer a valid way for a viewer to engage with, investigate and gain insight into an object in a different way. If the ‘D’ word must be avoided, what can replace it? How can the activity of drawing be explained in terms of a practical valid alternative method for investigating and engaging with objects?