Designs for Life

This exhibition displays a collaborative project which aimed to stimulate debate at the confluence of science and visual culture. 

‘Art and Science, it is clear, are neither new partners nor new antagonists; they are inextricable elements of the same historical quest for an understanding of life. Differing methods, tools and practices may be classified distinctly within these disciplines but to varying degrees one has, almost symbiotically, always informed the other’.

Designs for Life explored the process of visualisation of laboratory data relating to aspects of cell and gene research. The starting point and catalyst for subsequent activity was a series of print collaborations between the artist Paul Liam Harrison (quoted above) and twelve scientists, scheduled over a period of twelve months.

Over the course of the 2025/6 academic year we will exhibit here works from four of these collaborations with scientists Geoff Gadd, Mhairi Towler, Inke Nathke and Kate Storey. 

Paul Liam Harrison was at the time of the project in 2009 a Researcher at the Visual Research Centre, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. He continues to practice as an artist and teach and research in Contemporary Arts Practice at the University of Dundee, to whom we are grateful for loaning these works.

A book was published about the Designs for Life project. We have a copy in the Art Collection office (E1). If you wish to see the book, let us know.