Deconstructing Patterns

The deconstructing patterns exhibition is located at the Francis Crick Institute and has successfully intertwined science and art. The pieces on display in this exhibition are the product of many discussions between researchers and artists aiming to explore patterns in the research being conducted at the Institute.

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical research center in London, opened in 2016. Since then they have strived to answer research questions such as “How does a living organism acquire form and function?”, “How does cancer start, spread and respond to therapy?” and “How does the nervous system detect, store and respond to information and retain that information throughout life?” This exhibition shows artists attempts to visually display the patterns that have been found in answer to these questions.

Humans have a natural tendency to seek patterns in things in order to understand them – for example,

to begin to comprehend neurons in the brain we have learned to picture them as “trees”. Fluorescent labeling and computer simulation are used throughout research at the Francis Crick Institute; both create images that show an abundance of patterns, of which many examples can be viewed at the Deconstructing Patterns exhibition.

By deconstructing the patterns found in research, such as that exploring the genome, both scientist and artist have been able to discover and understand more about how the human body comes to be.

Each piece at the exhibition is accompanied by a brief overview of the scientific question, tools and techniques used in the scientists investigations. The exhibition itself is an exciting opportunity to learn more about the research being conducted at the Francis Crick Institute, as well as providing an interesting insight into science through an artists eyes.

writing and photography by Georgia Cook