IS A BIOBANK A HOME?
ABOUT THE INSTALLATION
HEATHER DEWEY-HAGBORG
BORN 1982, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA; ACTIVE NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Throughout the United States, facilities known as biobanks house the genetic information of millions of citizens. Filled with biological samples routinely collected at hospitals and medical centers, biobanks preserve our medical specimens for public and private research, often conducted with minimal informed consent. Artist and biohacker Heather Dewey-Hagborg considers the hidden homes of our DNA with an installation comprised of three works. Banked explores the architectural and cultural footprint of these spaces while searching for the location of her own biological specimens, beginning with her “blood spot card”—the blood drawn at birth from every newborn to be screened for disorders. Correspondence Song tracks the artist’s exchanges with medical institutions and third parties as she attempts to track down her samples, and Self-Portrait (Pathology) is constructed from specimen slides she obtained when requesting samples of her own bloodwork stored in the medical institution’s biobanks. Dewey-Hagborg’s investigation addresses the potential lives of our DNA at the intersection of surveillance, cutting-edge science, privacy, and legal and ethical concerns.
Special thanks to Fridman Gallery.
ACCESSIBILITY RESOURCES
Please note: visual descriptions for the exhibition will be available soon. Thank you for your patience.
