Anna Dumitriu Blog

27th January 2020

“Where There’s Dust There’s Danger” (2014) takes the form of tiny needle felted lungs made from wool and household dust impregnated with the extracted DNA of killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB). The organisms have been rendered sterile using a validated process used in whole genome sequencing of TB. The lungs show various stages of the disease […]

27th January 2020

“Rest, Rest, Rest!” (2014) takes the form of a tiny altered antique toy hospital bed and screen which are impregnated with the extracted tuberculosis (TB) DNA and dyed with natural dyes, which were historically used as treatments for the disease. It is part of Anna Dumitriu’s Romantic Disease series. Until the discovery of the antibiotic […]

27th January 2020

“Burden” (2017) is a hand carved sculptural work which focusses on the global health crisis of tuberculosis and is part of Anna Dumitriu’s Romantic Disease series. Made with carved Zimbabwean lemon opal stone and fruit stone, embroidered calico dyed with madder root (used as an ancient treatment for TB), and impregnated with TB DNA. Tuberculosis […]

27th January 2020

“The Consultation” (2014) reflects on the hopes of patients in their treatments at the very start of the antibiotic age and the increasing contemporary challenge of antibiotic resistance. These altered doll-sized modernist chairs and table have been stained orange with Prontosil, a sulfa medicine created in 1932 and based on Dr Paul Ehrlich’s concept of […]

2nd March 2020

“Algologies” explores the entangled relationships between seaweed, women and science. The project draws links between Victorian seaweed collectors, the use of seaweed-based agar jelly in contemporary biology, and seaweed growth as a barometer of climate change and the environment as well as a strategy for carbon capture.  The work fuses botanical printing techniques, DIY microbiology/biohacking […]

27th January 2020

Anna Dumitriu worked with scientists Melissa Grant and Rachel Sammons at the University of Birmingham to create “Microbe Mouth” (2016) made from unique teeth grown using bacteria. The team literally grew teeth, or at least the hydroxyapatite that tooth enamel is made from, in the lab using an extremophile bacterium which is part of the species […]

25th January 2020

As part of “Laboratory Life”, a project curated by The Arts Catalyst, Lighthouse and Andy Gracie, Anna Dumitriu led a group of artists, doctors and scientists to create “Infective Textiles” (2011) a textile-based artwork taking the form of a Regency style dress stained with bacterial pigments and patterned by antibiotics. This was her first major […]

24th January 2020

The following paper was originally presented at the Mutamorphosis Conference in Prague in 2012. There is a sense that the world is heading towards a new pandemic, that an unknown disease will emerge or that an existing pathogen will evolve strategies to resist our limited antibiotic cures and strike us down. At the heart of […]

3rd December 2019

“Trust Me, I’m an Artist” (2011 – 2017) was a major project led by Anna Dumitriu in collaboration with Bobbie Farsides (Professor of Clinical Ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and Lucas Evers at Waag Society which investigates the ethical issues arising from artists working in laboratory settings. The project considers how artists and […]

24th January 2020

Anna Dumitriu’s “Normal Flora” project began in 2004 as a pioneering artistic project created in collaboration with microbiologist Professor John Paul. It significantly pre-dates contemporary popular research into what has become known as “the microbiome”, a field made possible through developments in new technologies in genomics. When the project began this area of microbiological study […]