RETURN TO OLDER WORKS
a treasury of human inheritance, 2001 -
Details
Series of ‘mobiles’ dimensions variable.
Materials: Coloured agate slices, eaten silver and silver wire, steel rod.
Photography: Dave Morgan & Ib Sørensen
DESCRIPTION
The mobiles developed from an interest in historical family trees as the starting point for explorations of inherited disorders, specifically from those depicted in a series of volumes published by the Galton Institute in the 1930s, also entitled A Treasury of Human Inheritance. They collect case notes and pedigrees, relating to muscular & nervous diseases of movement such as Myotonic Dystrophy, Muscular Dystrophy and Huntington’s Disease.
The studies of the family pedigrees were done during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, some are contemporaneous and some date back to the seventeen hundreds. For example there are several by Duchenne himself (who discovered Muscular Dystrophy).
In making these into 3 dimensional forms, each person becomes represented by an agate slice. Different coloured agates represent various symptoms related to the condition, manifested in affected individuals. The case notes and the key are presented on the wall adjacent to the mobiles and as the branches of the mobiles rotate, the ‘key’ becomes increasingly difficult to ascribe.