Biomedicine on Display

On Monday 22nd March we held the second group drawing workshop at Medical Museion. I was joined by five others to draw one of the artefacts from the ’6 ting og sager’ exhibition. The specimen is the skeleton of a young child who had suffered with Rickets or ’English disease’ as it is known here.

What was most noticable about the morning was the intense silence. We are used to sitting for a couple of hours at the cinema or in front of the tv. but it is rare to be amongst a group of people who spent two hours staring at a single, static object.

The drawing session allowed those who had already seen the specimen to re-see it in a new way and offered a new experience for those who had never seen it before. All found they saw more and more detail the longer they spent looking and drawing. The glass case housing the specimen became an issue. It is as much part of the object as the specimen within but the significance of the affect it has on the display is not always apparent. The activity raised questions about distortion and distraction and the effects of the shifting reflections and refractions caused by the glass.

The old chestnut of the ubiquitous skull also came up. We all think we know what a skull looks like but can we be sure this is what this particular skull we were observing looked like? The whole group recognized the need to look at the object and try not to draw what we imagined we saw.

Each group of drawings by each individual shows not only their developing understanding of the object they were observing, but shows to us as viewers how differently we all saw the object. Everyones’ responses, focus on detail and areas of interest differ from eachother yet the object is equally recognizable as the same object we all saw and drew.

By spending these hours with the artefact each of us found new details to see and drew our way into trying to understand the materiality of what we were looking at, making it clearer to ourselves and offering fresh insights to others.

All the drawings can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucylyons/sets/72157623684073972

We have had our first drawing workshop here at Medical Museion.

Three staff members — Anni, Camilla and Nanna — participated in a group drawing workshop. The specimen we drew is an example of bones of the middle ear mounted in a magnifying glass and placed on a small wooden plinth. It comes from the Ibsen-Mackesprangske collection made between 1824 and 1836 and was taken from a collection made of inner ear bones of 55 deaf people at the Danish Deaf Institute. This object forms part of the collection chosen for the ’6 ting og sager’ exhibition, which opened last Friday (see presentation in Danish here).

The object was placed in the centre of the table. Anni and Camilla sat on one side and Nanna and I sat opposite. All three drew more than two or three drawings on one piece of paper. All found that the object was complicated but the more they looked the more they were able to visually unravel it. It became apparent that the intricate network of bones were not the only focal point. Although all three participants presumed that the ear bones would be the main thing they observed, all began to also draw the magnifying glass in which thery are mounted. The mount and stand that contain the bones became of equal importance and a key part of the object and their experience of it. Initially it was overlooked through the activity of drawing it they soon realised it was a relevant part of the artefact.

Nanna became the most frustrated as she realized after some time she had not observed the object in front of her. Having already spent so much time with the object in the context of conserving it, she thought she already knew everything about it. But she admitted she was ’drawing from a photograph of it in her head’. This is a common occurrance where people draw what they think an object looks like rather than how it actually appears to them when they are looking at it. Assumptions are made and the specificity of each object and each person’s experience of that object become replaced by memories of what they think it looks like.

Having spent a great deal of time with her head bowed in concentration drawing a detailed remembered representation of the object, Nanna moved positions and spent time looking at the object and drawing again from a different angle. Then she saw the object she knew so well with ’fresh eyes’ and was amazed by the new detail and insight she saw. Her drawing demonstrates how she saw the whole object and experienced it as a new artefact rather than in the fragments she pieced together from her remembered past experiences.

Time spent drawing and looking also benefitted Anni and Camilla. Anni’s alterations to her lines reveal her journey of seeing and understanding what she sees and Camilla’s three drawings demonstrate her understanding as she became more aware of the shape of the handle and the reflections on the glass.

Once they forgot to concern themselves so much with how the drawing looked and spent time looking at the object and tried to visually understand it, they made drawings that showed detail and clearer understanding and apprectiation of the object.

Feelings about the resulting drawings were varied but the view that all who participated appreciated the object, learned new things about it and gained respect for something that could have been overlooked.

See more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucylyons/sets/72157623623490658

The Hybrid Art Science Networking Association, which is led by Leeds-based artist Paul Digby and Sheffield-based scientist and artist Lizz Tuckerman, enables artists and scientists of all disciplines to meet, and encourages cross-disciplinary interaction. It is supported by Arts Council England, Yorkshire.

The Hybrid Art and Science Exhibition was held in various locations around Sheffield. My drawing was part of a collection of work on display at the Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery.

The piece selected for the exhibition is called ‘Bacteria Drawing’ and was made in May 2009. The drawing is a collaborative piece and is constructed from 22 drawings which form one large piece. It is about 170 cm in height, approximately150 cm approx wide and spreads about 170 cm along the floor out from the wall.

The drawing was made in Lisbon in May 2009 and is an outcome of my involvement in an invited residential project with Drawing Spaces at Fábrica Braço de Prata in conjunction with the Gulbenkian Institute of Science.

Over the last ten years my research has been created in the lab or dissection room rather than in the traditional setting of the artists’ studio. As a way to bring the lab into the gallery and to demonstrate the role of drawing, I allowed bacteria to grow on Petri dishes left in the project/gallery space at Fábrica Braço de Prata.

Using a microscope and drawing attachment, I invited members of the public to come and draw the bacteria they saw when looking down the microscope. The bacteria growing was formed from the breath of those who walked in and out of the project/gallery space. The participants were effectively drawing their own breath. Therefore they contributed both to the existence of the object they observed and to the method of revealing their continuous insights and understanding of their encounters with this phenomenon.

Using a drawing attachment on the microscope which allowed them to look down the microscope and see the bacteria whilst simultaneously seeing a projected image of their own hand holding the pencil meant they were effectively ‘tracing’ what they saw directly onto paper. They engaged with something that would normally repel them and through the activity of drawing, they saw the beauty and detail in bacteria. Rather than being concerned with the mechanics of making a drawing, they concentrated on the activity of actually looking, something we all frequently forget to do.

Joining together all the drawings made, the piece ‘Bacteria Drawing’ grew and developed collaboratively, paralleling the growth of the actual bacteria itself.

This drawing brought about further evidence of how important the activity of drawing is to understanding and dignifying observed subjects. The public saw the beauty of the unfamiliar by drawing. The project showed that drawing is not mere documentation but is about participation. This participation is embodied in the relationships that develop between artist and object and that the object observed is dignified through the respect and understanding gained in the activity of drawing.

Association for Medical Humanities
8th Annual Conference
Mon 5th – Wed 7th July 2010: Truro and Tate St Ives, UK

Humanities at the Cutting Edge:
Conversations between surgery, pathology, the humanities and the arts

This looks like it could be an interesting conference where invited speakers range from surgeons to artists and parallel sessions will be running workshops, conference papers and art exhibitions/performances. There is a provisional programme and the deadline for abstracts has been extended to 31 March 2010
Please include

Title and name:
Institutional affiliation:
Address for correspondence:
Email:
Telephone contact:
Title of proposed presentation:
Abstract (maximum 250 words):

Please return to: petrina.bradbrook@pms.ac.uk
Copy to: alan.bleakley@pms.ac.uk  and robert.marshall@rcht.cornwall.nhs.uk

AMH 2010
HUMANITIES AT THE CUTTING EDGE
CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN SURGERY, PATHOLOGY, THE HUMANITIES & THE ARTS

‘with a knife, with a little knife which scarcely fits into the hand but penetrates thinly through the astounded flesh’
- Federico Garcia Lorca

PROGRAMME
DAY 1: Monday July 5th
Early evening: Parallel events (tickets on first-come-first-served basis):
Registration at Tate or at Knowledge Spa: 6.00-6.30
Tate St Ives event
18.30-19.15: Talk by David Cotterrell, introduced by Alan Bleakley
19.15-19.45: Questions and discussion chaired by Christine Borland
19.45-21.30: Drinks and food reception Tate Café
Knowledge Spa, Truro event
18.30-19.30: Talk by Francis Wells, introduced by Tony Pinching
19.30-19.45: Questions and discussion chaired by Tony Pinching
19.45-21.30: Drinks and food reception in the atrium

DAY 2: Tuesday July 6th
8.30-9.00: Registration and coffee, Knowledge Spa, Truro
9.00-9.15: Opening – Alan Bleakley and Rob Marshall
9.15-9.30: Welcome – Professor Liz Kay, Dean of Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry
9.30-10.30: Plenary – Allison Crawford (Toronto)
10.30-11.00: Break
11.00-12.30: Workshops 1, parallel paper sessions 1, exhibition
Workshops 1
Juliet Percival: drawing on the body for Gunther von Hagens
Marie-Christine Pouchelle and Francis McKee: Robotics
Parallel sessions 1
Participants’ papers
12.30-14.00: Lunch and exhibitions/ AMH AGM 2010
14.00-15.30: Workshops 2, parallel paper sessions 2, exhibition
Workshops 2
Mark Kidel: representations of surgery in film
Deborah Kirklin: writing for Medical Humanities
Parallel sessions 2
Participants’ papers
15.30-16.00: Tea
16.00-17.00: Plenary – Kevin Patterson (Vancouver), introduced by Alan Bleakley
18.30-19.30: Speakers and guests – drinks at the Bleakleys
20.00-late: Conference dinner at the Beach Café, Sennen

DAY 3: Wednesday July 7th
8.30-8.45: Registration and coffee, Knowledge Spa, Truro
8.45-9.00: AMH 2011 Leicester – Paul Lazarus
9.00-10.00: Plenary – Must – performance by Peggy Shaw (New York) and Clod Ensemble (London)
10.00-10.30: Break
10.30-12.00: Workshops 3, parallel paper sessions 3, exhibition
Workshops 3
Peggy Shaw & Clod Ensemble
Roger Kneebone and group (simulation)
Parallel sessions 3
Participants’ papers
12.00-13.30: Lunch and exhibitions
13.30-14.30: Plenary – Roger Kneebone – simulation (London)
14.30-15.00: Summing up and reflections

Exhibition open
Waterstone’s bookshop and stalls throughout the conference