“An art-science ACE project to explore the common allergy hay fever, highlighting pollen’s beauty and malevolence.”
Last year, hay fever sufferers were acquainted with their pollen enemies through the exhibiting of the SNEEZE Project’s work at Newhampton Arts Centre’s Fun Palace event. Science was presented through an artistic lens for public engagement and as a test-bed. Newhampton Arts Centre have been a close partner throughout the project and wrote the following blog post about SNEEZE from their perspective.
“Artist Sue Brisco brought The Sneeze Project to NAC at last year’s Fun Palace, the immersive artwork which deals with the beauty and malevolence of pollen is about to get bigger!
Supported by Arts Council, this project aims to creatively inform to hay fever sufferers what they are facing through an engaging experience featuring drawing, exhibitions, postcards talks and films. Fine artist with a scientific background, Susan Brisco intents to communicate science through arts in order to reach a new audience.
According to the National Health Service (NHS), 1 in 4 people suffers from hay fever affecting all types and ages of people. Causing a multitude of symptoms such as runny noses, sore itchy eyes and sneezing to more severe debilitating respiratory symptoms, the pollen entities are a real foe for those who suffer from it. Nevertheless, Susan Brisco wants to show an other aspect of pollen. While looking at grains pollen more closely, some interesting ornamental micros-architectures can be discovered. The Sneeze Project reveals these microscopic visualisations in order to engage the public through an incredible fusion of art and scientific process.
Through a collaboration with scientists, medics and patients, different sizes and types of pollen have been explored from their environment to the human one. The collection of pollen coming from trees, grasses, weeds and spores has been imaged through a scanning electron miscroscope.
To explain the phenomen happening when pollen grains invade the human body, a film drawing and sound installation has been created to understand the behaviours of pollen and roles of the body in this process. Susan Brisco has been working with a sound engineer in order to produce a sound-scape mixing the beautiful and the evil at the same time… (to be continued)”
Read the rest of the post on Newhampton Arts Centre’s website here.
You can follow the Sneeze Project on Instagram @thesneezeproject