Abstract
White Rabbit Fever exhibition at Photographic Centre Peri in Turku, Finland. 16.6.-9.7.2017.
White Rabbit Fever is the culmination of Tammi’s research into the ambiguous boundary between life, death and sickness. The exhibition draws visitors into a contemplation of the nature of this question through artistic, scientific and philosophical means, using a combination of still-life photography, laboratory photography, sculpture and installations.
Tammi’s research on the topic started with the revelation of the many definitions that we use for death: there is clinical death, and some six minutes later biological death, and even after 17 days some stem cells might still be alive in a human corpse. In one remarkable example, an American woman named Henrietta Lacks died in 1951, but her cells are still alive and continuously grown in laboratories worldwide, cell division after cell division, decade after decade. Her cells – named HeLa cells – have been grown by tons and even sent into space.
The disease alluded to by the series, White Rabbit Fever is not an actual disease, but rather, an archetype representing the condition of being ill with a disease, assaulting our concept of time, as we count down the minutes until death.
White Rabbit Fever is not about a specific rabbit, or Henrietta Lacks as a person, but about time in relation to life and death. The series shows a decaying rabbit from Day 1 to Day 100. The series shows Henrietta Lacks’ HeLa cells, Pa-Ju cells derived from a teenage patient who died in 1983, and Us-Ki cells from another patient in 2009, all of which Tammi has been growing and documenting under highly controlled conditions at a laboratory in Helsinki, Finland.
Tammi confronts the uncomfortable, and ultimately unsolvable question in her exhibition delicately, drawing on beauty, suggestion and illusion to create a space for thought and wonder into the biggest mystery of our time on Earth.
White Rabbit Fever is the culmination of Tammi’s research into the ambiguous boundary between life, death and sickness. The exhibition draws visitors into a contemplation of the nature of this question through artistic, scientific and philosophical means, using a combination of still-life photography, laboratory photography, sculpture and installations.
Tammi’s research on the topic started with the revelation of the many definitions that we use for death: there is clinical death, and some six minutes later biological death, and even after 17 days some stem cells might still be alive in a human corpse. In one remarkable example, an American woman named Henrietta Lacks died in 1951, but her cells are still alive and continuously grown in laboratories worldwide, cell division after cell division, decade after decade. Her cells – named HeLa cells – have been grown by tons and even sent into space.
The disease alluded to by the series, White Rabbit Fever is not an actual disease, but rather, an archetype representing the condition of being ill with a disease, assaulting our concept of time, as we count down the minutes until death.
White Rabbit Fever is not about a specific rabbit, or Henrietta Lacks as a person, but about time in relation to life and death. The series shows a decaying rabbit from Day 1 to Day 100. The series shows Henrietta Lacks’ HeLa cells, Pa-Ju cells derived from a teenage patient who died in 1983, and Us-Ki cells from another patient in 2009, all of which Tammi has been growing and documenting under highly controlled conditions at a laboratory in Helsinki, Finland.
Tammi confronts the uncomfortable, and ultimately unsolvable question in her exhibition delicately, drawing on beauty, suggestion and illusion to create a space for thought and wonder into the biggest mystery of our time on Earth.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Valokuvakeskus Peri |
| Publication status | Published - 16 Jun 2017 |
| MoE publication type | F1 Published independent work of art or performance |
