TLRH | Spinning Yarns: Pathology and Poetry

Recorded May 20, 2020. The Art + Science Reading Group is now a
virtual gathering of thinkers, researchers and the incurably
curious. Organised by PhD candidates Amelia McConville (School of
English and Institute of Neuroscience) and Autumn Brown (School of
Education and Science Gallery Dublin) and supported by Science
Gallery Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub, the series will
explore the evolutionary and revolutionary kinship between two
approaches to understanding the universe and our place within it.
This week we turn from the botanical to the bacterial alongside
artist, writer and researcher Anna Dumitriu. Anna’s work explores
society’s relationships with infectious diseases, treatments, and
the myths that surround them. Especially relevant to our current
times, we will pick at the threads of history, microbiology, and
textile arts, particularly silk and how this ancient textile
material continues to shape medical and technological innovation.
Science often suffers from its own modernity and future focus. Its
priorities tend towards the horizon, rarely to history and what
lessons or solutions may be found there. Anna’s fascination with
the infections, outbreaks and the folklore which grows around them
underscores the importance of looking to the past, and to the
myths. And that the stories we tell about disease may be of deadly
consequence. The recommended reading for this session begins on
page 202 of Antennae, and explores Anna's work The Plague Dress.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/juezmhp7bvoamo5/ANTENNAE%20ISSUE%2048.pdf?dl=0
Alongside Anna Dumitriu's work, is the poetry of Jen Bervin, who
wrote a piece to be inscribed on a silk biosensor in her project
Silk Poems. This undertaking engages with silk's cultural,
scientific and linguistic complexities. You can watch Charlotte
Lagarde's short film about this process below.
https://vimeo.com/187955041 Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/