MOLLY MCLEOD

ARTIST STATEMENT

This project, Interfacing, was devised in collaboration with WEISS Centre pancreatic cancer researchers from UCL . Through online research sessions the main aims of the project came in to focus; increasing understanding and meaningful communication between researchers and pancreatic cancer patients and their carers/families. A virtual workshop was designed called ‘A Portrait Of You’ where patients & carers joined medical researchers to create their own data self portraits based on their answers to qualitative research questions.

The aim of the workshop was to spark new conversations and re-frame the context of qualitative research whilst creating a piece of new artwork that represented this. The workshop acted as a safe and open online space to discuss the use of personal data in a medical research setting, explaining it’s current role in training AI models to diagnose and predict pancreatic cancer at an earlier stage. We also encouraged candid conversations about the worries and fears surrounding the concept of sharing our personal data, using the visual cues and questions as a vehicle to guide what can be very personal and difficult topics to talk about openly with strangers.

The cyanotype images were then photographed at a magnification of 50x to create a dataset of 1000 images. These images were used to train a new AI model similar to those used by medial researchers today to improve early diagnosis of Pancreatic cancer. The resulting film is a shifting landscape of new hybrid images, these images were paired with quotes and sound-bites from the workshop to create a film that acts as a record of the workshop experience and creatively represents how data is used in a medical research setting.

This project was a collaboration between the artist and Senior Research Fellow at WEISS & UCL, Ester Bonmati, Clinical Research Fellow at WEISS & UCL, Alexander Ney, Professor of Hepatology & Gastroenterology at UCL, Stephen Pereira, Postdoctoral Training Fellow at UCL, Alexander Grimwood. It was managed and overseen by Simon Watt and made possible with funding from UCL and WEISS: Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences.

BIOGRAPHY

Molly Macleod is a multidisciplinary artist exploring scientific concepts through collaborative projects with researchers and scientists. Through poetic interpretation and distilling meaning via her use of unconventional, signifying materials, her artwork invites intimate and philosophical engagement combined with accessible simplicity. Locating her practice within the liminal space between art and science she employs the scientific method to examine and question cultural phenomena.

She has grown crystals that hear sounds, cultured the microbial imprint of TATE Modern visitors, formed pigment from her own skin, created a microphone out of carbon from her own body, revealed the sonic world from within trees and walked new paths formed by the patterns of her own veins.

Molly is a graduate from MA Art & Science at Central Saint Martins and has exhibited her work in major galleries such as TATE Modern, Maverick Projects, Apiary Studios & Fabrica Gallery and in far flung remote locations such as; in the shadow of a volcano on the Azorean Island of Pico for Montanha Festival and in the wilderness of the Pyrenean mountain range for CAMP France. She was recently shortlisted for the MullenLowe NOVA Award and was named the winner of the Digital Arts category of the Global Design Graduate Showcase 2021 from Artsthread & Gucci.