Constellations is a research project made up of an experimental short film and online publication by artists Esther Teichmann and Christopher Stewart, funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of the One Cell at a Time public engagement grant. The montage film draws upon surrealist layering and juxtapositions of fragments to explore the intertwining narratives of the Human Cell Atlas. A string quartet score composed by Deirdre Gribbin leads us through filmed and CGI visuals layered with archive footage from the Wellcome Collection. We move from the cosmic to the cellular, from flesh to data to the unknown of discovery and birth.

The online platform, designed and developed in collaboration with multidisciplinary creative studio HATO, presents this film together and in dialogue with commissioned writing; In Media Res: Three Generative Objects for the HCA by Boris Jardine, historically contextualizing the Human Cell Atlas, From Cell to Cosmos, extracts written by midwives, doulas and scientists from a series of creative writing workshops run by the artists with Sofie Layton, Discovery and the Genetic Unknown by scientific sociologist Jenny Bangham, Before the Moon Shattered and Shone Again by composer Deirdre Gribbin, All That We Are, a short story by Esther Teichmann,  On Constellations or Seeing Stars, an exploration of the shift in the representation of pregnancy and the female body with the advent of artists entering the medical space by art historian Gemma Blackshaw, and Notes on the Unfolding Flesh on editing and montage by Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė.

Constellations

  • Directed by Esther Teichmann and Christopher Stewart
  • Score composed by Deirdre Gribbin
  • Performed by The Benyounes Quartet
  • Edited by Geiste Kincinaityte
  • CGI visualizations by Liam Sielski Waters
  • Dancer - Sophia Wang
  • Baby (newborn and infant) - Ada Virginia Teichmann Stewart

Wellcome archive footage:

Biographies

Jenny Bangham specialises in the history of medicine and the biomedical sciences. She is author of Blood Relations: Transfusion and the Making of Human Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 2020). With Emma Kowal and Boris Jardine, she co-edited How Collections End: Objects and Loss in Laboratories and Museums (BJHS Themes, vol. 4, 2019), and with Xan Chacko and Judith Kaplan is co-editing Invisible Labour: Power and Politics in Science (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming). She earned a PhD in biology at University College London, and worked as a laboratory geneticist in Edinburgh, where she developed an interest in the cultures and histories of science. She completed an MPhil and PhD in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and worked at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, before joining the School of History at Queen Mary.

The Benyounes Quartet has forged a reputation for fresh, vivid performances and interpretations of refinement and integrity. The quartet’s international accolades include prizes at both the Orlando International String Quartet Competition and the International Sandor Vegh String Quartet Competition in Budapest. Their album Innovators for Champs Hill Records has received 4* reviews from Gramaphone, BBC Music and Strad Magazines. Their debut recording of Mozart Piano Concertos with pianist Jeremy Young was released on Meridian Records to critical acclaim. The four founding members of the Benyounes Quartet, Zara Benyounes, Emily Holland, Sara Roberts and Kim Vaughan are based in London and Edinburgh.

Gemma Blackshaw, co-curator of The Body Electric: Erwin Osen and Egon Schiele (Leopold Museum, 2021), is Professor of Art History at the Royal College of Art, London. A specialist in what she terms the clinical modernism of art in Vienna 1900, she works on the intersection of modernist portraiture and figuration with clinical medical cultures in early 20th Europe. Experimental feminist archival and curatorial practices which revolve around attention and reparation are central to her research.

Deirdre Gribbin is an award-winning composer from Belfast. She is a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast, Guildhall School of Music, London and received her doctorate from Royal Holloway, London.  Deirdre has explored the juxtaposition of drama and concert music with a ground-breaking UK tour of her violin concerto, Venus Blazing and her critically acclaimed second opera, Crossing the Sea, and her ballet Invitation to a Journey based on the work of architect Eileen Gray. Deirdre has written extensively for film and radio, including music for BBC Drama productions of Embers and The Possessed and the score for the feature film My Kingdom. Her orchestral music is available on lyric FM label. Deirdre has extended her collaborative interests to the world of science. She was a Leverhulme funded Artist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge writing Hearing Your Genes Evolve, which was featured in The Dark Gene, a documentary about genetics and was shortlisted for the Berlinale documentary film prize. Deirdre is Director of Venus Blazing Music Trust working with children with learning disabilities.

Boris Jardine is a researcher at the University of Cambridge, working in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. Prior to this he was a curator at the Science Museum, London. In 2014 he was awarded the Munby Fellowship in Bibliography at Cambridge University Library. Boris’ research explores the material culture of science broadly conceived, including instruments, collections and buildings. He is co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project Tools of Knowledge: Modelling the Creative Communities of the Scientific Instrument Trade, 1550–1914, and previous projects include the Leverhulme-funded Lost Museums of Cambridge Science, 1865–1936, which resulted in the volume How Collections End.

Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė is a Lithuanian artist and a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Film and Screen, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on artists’ moving image installations and their capacity for affect and experiential critique. Geistė works at the intersection of media theory, media archaeology, film studies, contemporary art and philosophy.

Sofie Layton is an artist working at the interface between patients and the scientific clinical landscape, based on a participative narrative process. Her AHRC funded PhD at the Royal College of Art explores themes of gestation and loss. She has worked in collaboration with scientists, clinicians and patients at Evelina Children’s Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Recent projects, include The Heart of the Matter, Bedside Manners, Making the Invisible Visible and Under the Microscope.

Christopher Stewart is an artist exploring themes of surveillance, the invisible, secrecy and power. Stewart’s work has been exhibited widely including at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art in Norwich, The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, Open Eye in Liverpool and Fotomuseum in Winterthur, Switzerland, with work held in public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Martin Z. Margulies collection, Miami. Writing and curatorial research projects are also central to Christopher’s practice. He completed an MA at the Royal College of Art and a PhD in the Faculty of Art & Design at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Esther Teichmann is an artist exploring relationships between the maternal, loss, desire and the imaginary. Recent solo museum shows include Heavy the Sea, Transformer Station, Cleveland and Mondschwimmen, Reiss-Engelhorn Museum, Mannheim. Collaborations include Phantasie Fotostudio II with Monster Chetwynd at John Hansard Gallery, and the co-curation and editing of the exhibition and book, Staging Disorder, with artist Christopher Stewart. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Teichmann received an MA and PhD in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art (RCA) and is Head of Programme of the Master of Research at the RCA.

Sophia Wang was raised in a family of molecular cell biologists and trained as an artist and writer, with cultural fluency that spans the living systems of nature and the aesthetics of visual arts, dance and literature. She is the co-founder of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company and MycoWorks, the biotechnology company that developed Fine Mycelium, a breakthrough in materials science and a platform for new design possibilities. Sophia holds a PhD in English from U.C. Berkeley, and while writing her doctoral dissertation on epic poetry and advancing a dance and performance practice, she began the creative collaborations at the intersection of art, science, curation and education that evolved into MycoWorks. Sophia is also the co-founder of Heavy Breathing,an experimental pedagogy series of movement workshops, and she has been producing and performing genre-defying works and art events for over a decade.

Liam Sielski Waters is an art director and artist working with visual effects and computer-generated imagery, with a research focus on medicine, science and technology. Liam works across advertising and fine art, creating virtual worlds across 2D and 3D still and moving image, that explore the invisible, unknown and uncanny. His fantastical worlds, depict unsettling still life studies and architectural spaces that are abject and beautiful at once. Liam holds a BA (hons) in Photography from the University of the Arts London.

With additional thanks to Sarah Teichmann, Aviv Regev, Muzlifah Haniffa, Krishnaa Mahbubani, Suzy O’Hara, Paul Gibson, Meghan Lambert, Flo Awichi, Giovanni Biglino, Issy Bourton, Emma Dann, Alexa Dean, Rachel Elf, Laura Godfrey-Isaacs, Xiaoling He, Sid Lawrence, Elo Madissoon and Ian Simcock.

Constellations by Esther Teichmann and Christopher Stewart was commissioned by One Cell At A Time, a public engagement project for the Human Cell Atlas. This work was funded in whole by Wellcome Trust Grant 218597/Z/19/Z.

The online artwork and publication is being exhibited as part of the One Cell At A Time exhibition onecellatatime.org running from 29 October to 30 November 2021.