Honey, she blew up the cells: Electron microscopes harnessed for show now on display in P.E.I.
N.S. artist Kim Morgan's work being shown at the Confederation Centre of the Arts
At first glance, some of Kim Morgan's artwork looks like a fantastical take on a science textbook.
There are large black-and-white photographs of blood cells. An 11-foot long sculpture of a skin flake flutters gently. An enormous sphere, like a beach ball, has its surface printed with an abstract pattern that turns out to be magnified belly button lint.
All were created using images generated by scanning electron microscopy, abbreviated as SEM.
"Technology enables us to see things that we couldn't see before... That's an opportunity to connect us to our bodies, to expand our knowledge about science and medicine and each other," said Morgan, a visual artist and professor at NSCAD University in Halifax.
"That's what ideally, I hope, people will get from this exhibition."
The exhibition Blood and Breath, Skin and Dust, currently up at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, captures a sense of extraterrestrial wonder centred within the human body.
"When I looked directly underneath the microscope, it almost reminded me of the universe," Morgan said.
I thought, I wonder if anybody else had seen blood like this?— Visual artist Kim Morgan
Indeed, a galaxy made up of blood cells appears in the exhibition. Other portraits of blood cells appear almost like "creatures I might see in the ocean," said Morgan, who likened other cell images to flowers or stones.
"I thought, I wonder if anybody else had seen blood like this? I mean, the average person," she said.
From illness to art
The leap from laboratory to gallery began more than a decade ago, when Morgan's mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer. Morgan had used the human body in her art practice before, but the maze of medical appointments, blood transfusions and other procedures her mother went through sparked something in the artist's brain.
"We had quite a dynamic relationship and I was wondering, could I see something about our relationship through, you know, blood ties, by looking at blood underneath the microscope," Morgan said.
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These questions led Morgan, who had no lab experience, to try to find a place where she could look at her own blood under a microscope. She ended up finding a scientific partner in Dalhousie University's medical school, where she participated in an artist-in-residence program and began learning how to use electron microscopes in 2014-15.
Her first scans were of her own blood, before she moved on to samples from volunteers. While Morgan plays with size and shape — taking the scans and turning them into inflatable objects or giant, wall-covering images — she doesn't alter or augment what the microscope has magnified.
"I have kept the scientific integrity. I haven't changed the data of the scans. That was also very important to me in this project," Morgan said.
She did scan some of her mother's blood, although her mother passed away before getting to see it turned into art.
"They were different than other blood cells. You know, they looked different to me," she said. "[They] reminded me of our relationship."
Morgan also scanned a sample of her mother's ashes, creating an inflated sculpture she has floated through the atrium of Dalhousie's Killam Memorial Library — in part as a tribute to her mother, who was a scientist and researcher.
"She would be very supportive and I think she would find it quite fun," she said.
While blood and body particles may make some people squeamish, Morgan wants her magnified images to make viewers lean in and reconsider their perceptions.
"I'm hoping that through the art, my art, people will shift their ideas about blood; that they will not be repulsed but curious," she said.
Morgan's show, previously exhibited in St. John's and Halifax, is on display in Charlottetown until May 2.
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