An Experimental Laboratory For Healing.

An immersive site-responsive commissioned project for Artspace CWOS Alternative Space at Yale West Campus. 2018

With David Hesse, MD and Demetrios Braddock, MD, of Braddock Labs.  Sound by Derek Piotr. Special thanks to United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation and Mito Action.

 Inspired to generate an open dialogue around the complexities of their daughter’s rare mitochondrial disease, Kearns-Sayre Syndrome, Debbie Hesse (artist) and David Hesse (MD) collaborated for the first time in an art context to create this room of beauty, healing and hope.  The phantasmagorical mixed-media light installations serve as mechanisms for visualizing their daughter’s condition, as well as educating the public and exploring future cures.

 Situated in rows of identical workspaces the installation suggests a range of cellular behavior and activities, which the artists have transformed into a “powerhouse” of human interaction and activity. Visitors are invited to manipulate the lights and create novel shapes, adding the artist-fabricated abstractions of scientific data mined from x-ray crystallography, gene-editing techniques, and video excerpts from surgical procedures performed by robots and lasers.

Sarah Fritchey, Curator at Artspace

Photo Credits: Leigh Busby. Graham Hebel and Helen Glisser During at Yale West Campus for CWOS