From 6 November 2019 to 23 January 2020 the George Marshall Medical Museum displayed Helen Birnbaum’s Quarantine and Influenza.
Check out Helen’s blog here: https://memorialisingdisease.wordpress.com
“I make stories out of clay, that most ancient of materials, and by exploring modern images and mythologies I reveal aspects of lives today. My sculptures have found their place in a new artistic environment that explores and supports science and art. I have exhibited at the World Museum Liverpool, the Gordon Museum at Guy’s Hospital and Art Box Basel. In 2018 I won the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Morley Gallery Ceramic prize, and in 2014 I was resident Ceramic Artist at Liverpool Hope University. Thanks to the immunologist Matthew Helbert for all his advice and making sure that I knew my viruses from my bacteria.”
Quarantine Boxes
Quarantine: Noun
Strict isolation imposed to prevent spread of disease
Detention or isolation enforced
Place, especially a hospital, where people are detained
Period of 40 days.
Isolation and quarantine protect the public by preventing exposed to others who have, or may have, a contagious disease. In Quarantine Boxes disparate items of ephemera and tiny ceramic sculptures of viruses and bacteria are placed inside old wooden boxes as a visual suggestion of the containment of disease - but also of coffins.
The act of containing these items in boxes suggests the act of putting into isolation or quarantine but, ultimately, the focus of this work is the act of remembrance of individuals lost to disease. A photograph accompanies each of the boxes to show another aspect of tragedy. This is an intimate way of memorialising disease and exploring loss, not the loss of the good and the great who provided cures and helped save humanity, but the sacrifices forced upon ordinary people.
All images © Helen Birnbaum, and shared with kind permission of the artist.
Cholera
Dirty Money
Staphylococcus
Rotavirus
Tuberculosis
influenza
Between 50 and 100 million people are thought to have died in the flu pandemic of 1918. Researchers were encouraged to develop a vaccine. In 1933 MRC Centre for Drug Safety Science staff gathered nasal and throat fluids from a sick researcher and dripped them into ferrets. Within 48 hours the ferrets started sneezing and researchers identified a virus as the culprit. The MRC moved into the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, London an imposing Art Deco building once used as the backdrop to the film Batman Returns. Eggs have been used to manufacture influenza vaccines for over 70 years. The Influenza virus is injected into the egg and once inside into it tells the genetic material to generate new viruses.
The Evans Company outside Liverpool have a huge role to play in this, but closer to home for me, is the Skelmersdale Egg Lady, seen holding my ceramic flu virus in her shop.
The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat, and sometimes the lungs. It can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death. Common symptoms include feeling feverish; cough; sore throat; runny nose; muscle pain; headache and fatigue.
Influenza
Quarantine Box
The day I visited the NIMR site it was being demolished to make way for new homes. The ceramic virus is shown against the backdrop of the famous building as it was being wrecked. The ceramic virus was made in cross section to show the gold painted DNA worming its way out of the outer shell.
Influenza
The larger collection of viruses are balanced on one side of an old kitchen scales and a large egg is balanced on the other side suggesting the surprisingly homely nature of vaccine production.
Influenza
All images © Helen Birnbaum, and shared with kind permission of the artist.