2002
latch hook on canvas, mounted on luan
installation dimensions variable (pictured: approx. 120 H × 200 W in)
Titles in series: Bacillus anthracis, Clostridium botulinum, Filoviridae ebola, Escherichia coli, Salmonella choleraesuis, Orthopoxvirus variola
Vigilant displays colorful and simplified latch hook renderings of microorganisms including Ebola, Smallpox, Anthrax, Botulism, and E. coli. Latch hooking is a simple but time-consuming craft that has traditionally been used to depict idealized and romanticized images from domesticity and nature. The juxtaposition of the images and the process creates a tension between the sweetness of the craft and the anxiety evoked by organisms of bioterrorism and household biohazards.
Vigilant displays colorful and simplified latch hook renderings of microorganisms including Ebola, Smallpox, Anthrax, Botulism, and E. coli. Latch hooking is a simple but time-consuming craft that has traditionally been used to depict idealized and romanticized images from domesticity and nature. The juxtaposition of the images and the process creates a tension between the sweetness of the craft and the anxiety evoked by organisms of bioterrorism and household biohazards.
...Splan turns the immaterial into substance, giving form to the processes of scientific research that remain unseen: the invisible labour of biotechnology. Citing a range of inspiration, from 16th-century surgeon Gaspare Tagliacozzi through to Victorian samplers...her use of craft is, ‘at odds with the deadly microbes that they depict...rendering something unfamiliar and strange into something decorative and domesticated’...
“...Laura Splan examines the cultural trends and events that underscore the manner in which the fragility of the human body is taken for granted...medical technology, bioterrorism, health epidemics, and the mutation of super-resistant microbes are all fodder for her art...”
Exhibitions: Wignall Museum of Art, Rockhurst University Greenlease Gallery, ArtsWestchester, Limn Gallery, Spanganga Gallery
