Science Museum
Revealing our genetic makeup
Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries
Science Museum, London
Permanent installation
In autumn 2019, the Science Museum unveiled Medicine, The Wellcome Galleries – a magnificent new home for the Wellcome trust collection. As part of the graphic vision for this gallery, I was commissioned to design a large-scale artwork on the theme of Karyotypes. The permanent artwork is placed within a showcase featuring historical scientific objects that have been used in the development of our genetic make-up.
The final artwork measures 3 x 2.5 metres and has been created by routing shapes, several layers deep in white acrylic.
A Karyotype is an image of a person's chromosomes. 11 pairs are male (Y) and 11 are female (X) chromosomes and the 23rd pair determines the sex.
Working within the confines of the CNC production process, I ran tests to determine how different line weights would behave when engraved at different depths.
Design development
Sketch
CNC test
As part of my initial research I visited Blythe House – home to the archives of the Science Museum, V&A and the British Museum. I got to see first hand, objects that would be housed within the Karyotypes display case and would form the narrative around the history of visualising genetic data.
Microscope slide made by Charles Ford and John Hammerton
