Anna Dumitriu Blog

3rd March 2020

“The Hunt for New Antimicrobials” (2016-17) was a collaboration between Anna Dumitriu and Professor Maggie Smith and Stuart Priest to explore the urgent issue of antibiotic resistance and the research being undertaken at the University of York in the search for new antimicrobial substances. The artist’s residency led new body of artwork and a participatory […]

3rd February 2020

“The MRSA Quilt” (2011) was created by embedding squares of cotton calico in chromogenic agar. This bacterial growth medium contains a dye that is taken up by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, causing them to grow blue in colour and stain the calico. The patterns on the squares are created using different tools and techniques in the […]

31st January 2020

Since 2018 Anna Dumitriu held an artist in residence post with the National Collection of Type Cultures, the oldest and most historic collection of pathogenic organisms. She is developing a new body of work with the collection, telling stories and drawing threads between the history and future of microbiology. New works so far developed with the […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]