Co-Existence

9th February '09

Wellcome Trust
Gibbs Building, 215 Euston Road, London

A new commission for the Wellcome Trust’s window display by German-born product designer Julia Lohmann will provide bold viewing for passers-by on London’s Euston Road.

With the help of Professor Michael Wilson and Dr Derren Ready at the University College London Eastman Dental Institute, Lohmann has created photographic images consisting of 9000 petri dishes brightly illuminated with colours and designs that form the shape of two naked women lying head-to-head.

Inspired by the unseen universe consisting of at least 2000 different species of microbe that inhabit our bodies (microorganisms including bacteria, viruses and fungi), Lohmann’s images are in fact pixellated photographic images of the colonies of the most common species, which appear on the bases of the petri dishes.

The positioning of each microbe within the artwork shows the part of the human body in which it most commonly lives. Selected dishes have been drawn on, adding visual interpretations of imagined microbes and helping to form the outline of the human body.

www.wellcome.ac.uk

Co-Existence: 215 Euston Road window display Credit: Wellcome Library, London

Co-Existence: 215 Euston Road window display Credit: Wellcome Library, London