Distortion

Jordan Murray, New Norfolk High School

In collaboration with Md Mobarok Hossain
Menzies Institute for Medical Research, UTAS

Artist’s Statement

I was inspired by Mobarok’s research after visiting the lab at Menzies. Mobarok told us that the prevalence of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is higher in Tasmania than anywhere else in Australia. This surprised me and I was interested to find out why.

Mobarok is trying to figure out whether this could be down to the Epstein Bar Virus (EBV). Although this virus is all over Australia there could be a different strain in Tasmania which could contribute to MS.

When I started thinking about my artwork, I wanted to create distorted limbs to represent how we can’t control something like MS and it also makes me think of disrupting a DNA sequence. I chose to use red to highlight how parts of the body start losing function and how people are affected. It also adds a disturbing element as it reminds me of blood.

During the lab visit Mobarok also showed us a website where you can see the data and visualise proteins and DNA sequencing. This gave me the idea for my sculpture’s brain. The brain is a spinning EBV protein that might assist in creating MS. I decided to add the letters ATCG to represent the DNA base code. Mobarok showed us the DNA sequence of the EBV virus which has 171 821 base pairs.

When people view my artwork, I hope they are interested to find out more about Mobarok’s research.