Background

Introduction

As a visual artist and academic my work focuses on the relationship between art and science and with collaborative and interactive contemporary arts projects between the artist’s studio and the scientific laboratory. In particular my work considers the methods and materials that are used to visualise the medicalised and diseased human body and the ways in which, in particular, genetic diseases are visually, linguistically and culturally represented. Since the ‘genetic revolution’ visualisations of disease and illness have become increasingly microscopic and as the ‘invisible’ world of disease emerges through advanced technology questions arise as to how we can articulate a discourse between how we see and how we say disease - how can we read the story that the body is writing?

Qualifications

2012  PhD Research (AHRC Funded)  Northumbria University
2007 MA Art Practice: Fine Art Northumbria University
2000 MA Creative Writing, Northumbria University
1997 BA English & History Northumbria University

Previous Posts

• Research Associate, PEALS, Newcastle University
• Research Associate, Dementia & Imagination, Newcastle University
• HEIF Fellow, Medical Humanities, Northumbria University
• Research Fellowship, Newcastle University/Great North Museum
• Research Associate, Jetty Project, Newcastle University
• Research Assistant, Northumbria University

Research

Research

My particular research interest is concerned with the visual and linguistic methods used by researchers, clinicians and patients to communicate the complexities of genetic research and disease and my focus is on producing work that is stimulated by, and responds to, the difficulties of this type of communication.  Working in an interdisciplinary way allows for the exchange of ideas, methodologies and materials and encourages the consideration of the creative acts that occur for the scientist as well as the artist, as whilst art can challenge it can also aid understanding and create new narratives and ways of seeing.

Through collaborations with research scientists and clinicians I produce work that is stimulated by and responds to the micro and often invisible world of genetic research. From 2009 to 2012 I worked in collaboration with research scientists at the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle and the TREAT-NMD Network conducting a practice led research PhD into the visualisations of rare, genetic muscle diseases.  Since then I have worked on a number of collaborative projects in order to develop artistic and creative ways to communicate genetic disease and bio medical research. As a Research Fellow at the Great North Museum I carried out research around the now extinct Great Auk,  the work and exhibition considered some of the ethical challenges around the genetic technologies that we are currently using for gene editing in particular CRISPR cas9 –and how this can be used in de-extinction projects.

Publications

• Connelly A, Guy S, Ingold T, Miles M, Niero L, Tawa M, Weileder W, Wilde M. Catalyst - Art, Sustainability and Place in the work of Wolfgang Weileder. Bielefeld, Germany: Kerber Verlag, 2015.
• Connelly A, Guy SC, Wainwright E, Weileder W, Wilde M. Catalyst: reimagining sustainability with and through fine art. Ecology and Society 2016, 21(4), 21.