Artist Statement for Medicine Unboxed 2012

I am interested in the concept of ‘the origin of belief’. How are beliefs formed? Are our beliefs individual to us, or influenced by social and cultural factors surrounding us?

 

 

I read that “belief is a mental architecture of how we interpret the world”.

This made me think of formal structures, the organisation of cells that make up the intricate civilisation of tissues which house our thoughts. Although the brain of the doctor would look identical to that of the patient under the microscope, what is it that causes us to adopt different belief systems and thought processes? We all share the same neuroanatomy, but no two minds are identical.

 

Historical references have been documented concerning the discoveries that neuroscientists have made, connecting the hard-wired organisational structure of the brain with the intangible beliefs that we humans hold. For hundreds of years, there have been documented cases of people who have physically damaged their brain through illness or trauma, which has resulted altered behaviour, and possessing very specific delusions, beliefs held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. This anecdotal evidence is now being confirmed with the development of science and technology. A method of taking pictures of the human brain working, known as functional neuroimaging, shows us the brain lighting up like a Christmas tree when the subject is experiencing different emotions, allowing us to actually see wherein the brain these intangible thoughts originate from within this organ.

“Beliefs are mental objects, in the sense that they are embedded in the brain”.

I wanted to work with this idea of functional imaging, representing the origins of belief. I based the images on real MRI scans that I am used to seeing everyday in a professional capacity, using images of the brain where it had been ‘cut’ into interesting sections which are not easily recognisable. The hard, cold, science of anatomy and pathology, have been contrasted with ancient techniques and muted colours to produce the ethereal quality of the images of the mind in action. The canvases are layered with gesso to incorporate texture. The palette is calm and neutral, reminding me of the transient nature of dust; how our delicate and fragile beliefs could fade with time.

Medicine Unboxed posters to date

I have been lucky enough to have been asked to produce the artwork for Medicine Unboxed since 2010. 

 

Medicine Unboxed 2010: Stories, Language and Medicine

Acrylics on board

 

 

Medicine Unboxed 2011: Medicine and Values

Screen print and hand embroidery on fabric

 

 

Medicine Unboxed 2012: Medicine and Belief

Acrylics and Gesso on Canvas

 

 

2013 poster to follow!





Conference 19-20th September 2013. Malady and Mortality: Illness, Disease and Death literary and visual culture conference

Keynote Speakers: Professor Tony Walter, Centre for Death, University of Bath; Professor Alan Bleakley, Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry
Papers are invited on the following topics:

• Health, Well Being and Environment
• History of Medicine
• Public Health and Medicine
• Disease and Subjectivity
• Disability and Agency
• The Body in Pain
• Palliative Care
• Illness and Digital Technologies
• Narrative, e-Narratives and Memory
• Medical Intervention and Patient Testimony
• Communication and Patient Networks
• Medical Identities and Medical Gatekeepers
• Sustainability, Quality of Life and Euthanasia
• State Intervention and Legal Decisions
• Artes Moriendi and Privacy Definitions of Death
• Rights and Ownership
• Grief and Mourning

Please send abstracts (200 words max) to Dr Helen Thomas, with subject header ‘Malady and Mortality Conference’ by 1st May 2013.

Medicine Unboxed 2012

Highlights from Medicine Unboxed 2012, Parabola Arts Centre, Cheltenham.

 

 

 

For more soundclips and videos from the event, go to https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/medicineunboxed/id586049615?mt=2

 

https://soundcloud.com/#medicineunboxed

 

http://vimeo.com/medicineunboxed

 

http://www.medicineunboxed.com



Poet in the City, March 4th 2013

Sam Guglani and Jo Shapcott talking about poetry and medicine ahead of the Poet in the City event on 4 March

Jo Shapcott: Imagination and empathy

 

 

 

 

I have just returned from Medicine Unboxed in Cheltenham. It was a brilliant weekend, inspiring as ever.

 

My imagination was particularly captured by the poet Jo Shapcott. She discussed the importance of imagery and metaphor in illness and disease, and how this frames a person's existence. This allows patients' to take on their own identity and construct their new reality; to process their emotions and feelings about the present and the future. The ability to imagine other existances is what makes us human, and feeds our curiosities. This projection of imagination into others' experiences is the definition of empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

 

Unfortunately empathy is a quality in medicine that is sometimes lacking in some doctors. Whether that is due to doctor personality and beliefs, or poor training, or time constraints, I'm not certain. But empathy is crucial in modern medicine to express the humanity in an often alien and overwhelmingly scientific culture.

 

Jo Shapcott read this poem at the conference as an example of what empathy is: to totally project yourself into another experience. Go inside the tree is a beautiful lesson on the relationship between imagination and empathy; the need to take a huge leap of imagination in order to get to the truth of a situation.  

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

http://rebeccaskloot.com/

I finished reading this book last week, it was the first book I have read in ages, and it was amazing.

"There’s a photo on my wall of a woman I’ve never met, its left corner torn and patched together with tape. She looks straight into the camera and smiles, hands on hips, dress suit neatly pressed, lips painted deep red. It’s the late 1940s and she hasn’t yet reached the age of thirty. Her light brown skin is smooth, her eyes still young and playful, oblivious to the tumor growing inside her—a tumor that would leave her five children motherless and change the future of medicine. Beneath the photo, a caption says her name is “Henrietta Lacks, Helen Lane or Helen Larson.”

No one knows who took that picture, but it’s appeared hundreds of times in magazines and science textbooks, on blogs and laboratory walls. She’s usually identified as Helen Lane, but often she has no name at all. She’s simply called HeLa, the code name given to the world’s first immortal human cells—her cells, cut from her cervix just months before she died.

Her real name is Henrietta Lacks."

-excerpt from opening chapter

Simply put, the book flits back and forth from two viewpoints: one of science and one of humanity.

The book is about the life of Henrietta Lacks and her family, the woman who's biopsied cancerous cells were the first cells to survive and replicate in cell media, and was used in numerous pioneering scientific experiements, responsible for important drug developments amongst other things. Underneath this very human aspect, the science behind cell culturing and what happened to these cells is weaved thougout, explained simply and succinctly.

Henrietta Lacks

Behind the wonderful discoveries that were occuring in science in the 1950s that are acknowledged in this book and the significant consequences of these, there is a great sadness in the book surrounding how the actions of the scientists, doctors and media affected Henrietta's family so many years after her cells were taken.

I was shocked about the scrupulous medical ethics surrounding medical experiments and patient consent that was happening not so long ago. The book raises important questions about appropriate communication between doctors and patients, as well as ethical issues surounding consent, the monetary value of medicine and science and ownership of patient cells.

The book is writen so sensitively and transparently, as the author takes the reader with her on her journey to find out the truth about Henrietta and her cells. It becomes very obvious how genuinely the author cares about Henrietta's story and what is to become of her family, allowing the reader to develop empathy with their situation.



This would be a brilliant informative book to read in medical school, not least because it explains all the science bits in such as easy understanddable way, but is also an important lesson on how a doctors' actions and words can deeply affect not only one patient, but several generations related to that patient. I found this book very moving and inspiring, and has definately influenced and informed my future clinical practice.