THE HANGING DROP
2018
The Hanging Drop is a tissue culture performance experiment that aims to question the ways in which the micro-agencies of cellular bodies and the distortion of microscopic environments can impact the form-making abilities of living materials.
The performance was designed by suspending living Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells derived from bone marrow in a droplet of liquid Nutrient Medium. These droplets were flipped upside down in order to change the impact of gravity on the formation and growth of the microscopic cellular structures.
Each performance would last a total of 72 hours. During this time they would reach a peak in their form-making abilities. When the cells depleted their environment of nutrients, the cellular forms would dissolve signaling the limits of their ability to retain.
The Hanging Drop was performed and exhibited live at the Moores Building in Fremantle, WA, Australia as part of the exhibition “Return of the Teratoma”. This work was created with the support of SymbioticA Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts at the University of Western Australia. Scientific collaboration and support were provided by Dr. Stuart Hodgetts and the Spinal Cord Repair Lab at the University of Western Australia.