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Metagenomics in Art workshop at Tate Exchange

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Metagenomics in Art is a workshop that I developed during my collaboration with the BP Art Exchange at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Metagenomics as a subject is very human and intimate, but the word does not communicate the richness of the subject and its importance to the human condition. Each of us has a host of other life-forms that reside on and in us, some of which are vital to keep us alive, some of which are invasive and harmful. They even leave fragments of themselves in our own DNA, and Metagenomics is the field concerned with how the genomes of the bacteria and viruses that call us home can interact with our health on a fundamental level. At the start of the collaboration with the Tate, we were asked to work in response to artworks that were being displayed in the Tate Britain. Ophelia, by Sir John Everett Millais, has always been one of my favourite artworks. Ophelia lies there on the point of death, but around her is a scene full of life, and this thought inspi