Anna Dumitriu Blog

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 […]

4th February 2019

Clouds have their own microbiomes, made up of bacteria, viruses and fungal spores, which have been swept up from the ground by wind and through evaporation, in order to hitch rides around the planet. Water vapour can collect on these tiny specks of organic matter and seed ice crystals which fall as snow, their intricate […]

3rd October 2019

Super-organism is an ongoing series of artworks investigating the human microbiome by Anna Dumitriu and Alex May. It currently comprises “Super-organism” a full body interactive installation and participatory workshop commissioned by Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam, a video installation “Super-organism: The Living Microbiome” commissioned by The Wellcome Collection and “The Human Super-organism” focussing on the bacteria […]

4th February 2019

“The Chemistry of Biology: An Alchemy of DNA” (2017) references alchemical desires to ‘transmute’ matter into new forms, create panaceas to cure any disease, or to find the secret of immortality, Anna Dumitriu has woven together complex historical narratives with synthetic biology, DNA sequencing, and new super-resolution imaging technologies in an attempt to deconstruct what […]

1st February 2020

Modernising Medical Microbiology Residency Anna Dumitriu received a Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence Award in 2011 to work Modernising Medical Microbiology at The University of Oxford. Modernising Medical Microbiology looks at the changing face of medical microbiology in light of the possibilities of (near) real-time whole genome mapping of bacteria and new developments in bioinformatics. […]

28th January 2018

Anna Dumitriu worked with Kevin Cole & Dr John Paul (PHE/Modernising Medical Microbiology), Professor Martin Llewellyn, Dr Daire Cantillon, Dr James Price, and Dr Leena Al-Hassan (Brighton and Sussex Medical School) and Dr Nicola Fawcett (University of Oxford/Modernising Medical Microbiology) to create a method to safely display a collection of ‘superbugs’ commissioned for The Science […]

16th August 2018

The “Entangled Health” series was created when Anna Dumitriu became the first Artist in Residence at the University of Surrey working alongside Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences over the 2021-22 academic year. Since over 70% of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in animals, the residency explored the complex interrelationship of animal and human […]

31st January 2018

During her role as Visiting Research Fellow in the Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) (2014 – 2022) Anna Dumitriu collaborated with researchers and explored issues around healthcare in low to middle income countries, including infectious diseases, ethics, genetic conditions such as Podoconiosis and […]

4th February 2020

This project is artistically explored the “Collateral Effects” of the pandemic on science and society through the creation of a body of art works stemming from in-depth collaborations with researchers from leading scientific organisations across England. The immediate impacts of the pandemic are clear but there are already many unforeseen collateral effects on science as […]

1st January 2018

Vienna Underground/The Third Woman (2007-9) project was a multifaceted locative media performance based film/game with generative music elements which Anna Dumitriu collaborated on as part of a team of artists. The game element was a re-visioning of the film “The Third Man” which tells the story of the smuggling of antibiotics in post war Vienna. […]