Anna Dumitriu. Microbe Stories

About

Dumitriu’s art practice fuses craft, technology and bioscience to weave complex but engaging narratives around our relationship to infectious disease and its cultural and personal implications. She works hands-on with the tools and techniques of microbiology and synthetic biology to create intricate artworks that reveal strange histories and emerging futures. Her obsessions with the history and treatment of infectious diseases, medical ethics, antibiotics and antibiotic resistance, natural dyes and ancient remedies, the evolution of drug discovery process and genetics speak urgently to the concerns of wide audiences and make for a visceral and emotionally affecting experience.

The exhibition will include works from many of her key projects including her Romantic Disease project which explores mankind’s strange relationship with ‘the Romantic Disease’ Tuberculosis (TB) from early superstitions about the disease, through the development of antibiotics, to the latest research into whole genome sequencing of bacteria, and some of her works exploring synthetic biology and the hunt for new antibiotic solutions – particularly inspired through her collaboration with the Modernising Medical Microbiology Project. Visitors will be struck by her unexpected uses of materials that combine intricate traditional and sometimes ancient art making techniques with the use of lab generated materials including sterilised disease-causing, or genetically modified bacteria. The work featured in the exhibition is drawn from many collaborations and is presented with support from Dr Elita Jauneikaite and Dr Nicola Fawcett.