London’s Smithfield Gallery is hosting an exhibit of glass sculptures of deadly micro-organisms by artist Luke Jerram. The purpose of the intriguingly beautiful sculptures is to examine how the coloring of medical drawings of microbes affects the perception people have toward the diseases. From the article:
The question of pseudo-colouring in biomedicine and its use for science communicative purposes, is a vast and complex subject. If some images are coloured for scientific purposes, and others altered simply for aesthetic reasons, how can a viewer tell the difference? How many people believe viruses are brightly coloured? Are there any colour conventions and what kind of ‘presence’ do pseudocoloured images have that ‘naturally’ coloured specimens don’t? See these examples of HIV imagery. How does the choice of different colours affect their reception?
In response to these questions, Jerram has created a series of transparent, three dimensional sculptures. Photographs of these artworks will be distributed to act as alternative representations of each virus. Ironically the coloured photograph of the HIV sculpture by David Sayer won an award from the Institute of Medical Imaging 2007.
The sculptures were designed in consultation with virologists from the University of Bristol using a combination of different scientific photographs and models. They were made in collaboration with glassblowers Kim George, Brian Jones and Norman Veitch.
Below is a Youtube video of one of the glass blowers creating the model of the HIV virus.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhWgq8622Mw&feature=player_embedded]
[Glass Microbiology via BoingBoing ]