Five women artists shortlisted to create new memorial to Professor Anita Harding

13 March 2025

As part of a public art project celebrating pioneering women neuroscientists for UCL’s new world-class neuroscience building, currently under construction at Grays Inn Road, London, the life and work of Professor Anita Harding will be remembered.

The interactive, celebratory and educational installation will highlight and celebrate the major contribution of inspirational and pioneering women neuroscientists of the past and present as well as looking to the future.

As part of the project, a permanent memorial to Anita Harding has been commissioned by UCL’s public art department in collaboration with leading public art commissioning organisation, UP Projects. A shortlist of five women artists has been chosen including: Jacqueline Donachie, Laura Ford, Valda Jackson, Serena Korda and Paloma Proudfoot, who will work up proposals for the memorial before a winning artist is announced in April 2025.

Anita Harding (1952-1995) was the first female professor of Clinical Neurology in the UK, whose major discoveries included the first identification of a mitochondrial DNA mutation in human disease, alongside Ian Holt and John Morgan-Hughes. She spearheaded the first neurogenetics research group in the UK at the Institute of Neurology, while still a lecturer and was just weeks away from taking up a post as the head of the Clinical Neurology before she died from colon cancer, aged 42.

The new UCL centre where the memorial will be located aims to accelerate the discovery of treatments for neurological conditions, including dementia – for which there is still no known cure. It will be home to the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology; the UK Dementia Research Institute and the UCLH National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, bringing together scientists, clinicians and patients under one roof, enabling ground-breaking research to be translated from bench to beside and back again.

The shortlist of artists was selected by a panel of UCL staff and academics and artists, including Institute Director Professor Michael Hanna, Professor Helene Plun-Favreau, Professor Gabriel Lignani, Director of Public Art Sam Wilkinson, public artist at Grays Inn Road, Annie Cattrell and Emma Underhill, Founder & Artistic Director, UP Projects. Shortlisted artists will now develop their concept and submit their ideas.

The winning artist will be selected by the panel in April 2025 with the memorial being installed in the public area of the new centre when it opens. Described by patients and colleagues as an outstanding scientist, with a wonderful sense of humour, Anita will be remembered as one of many pioneering women who successfully navigated a male-dominated environment to make major contributions to neuroscience and the practice of clinical neurology and neurology at Queen Square, since the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at Queen Square by the Chandler sisters in 1860.

Sam Wilkinson, Director of Public Art, UCL said:
“After speaking with those who knew or were taught by Anita Harding, it is clear that her extraordinary contribution to neurogenetics must be recognised. Her support for women and early-career academics is often cited as inspirational. The new building's public art programme will be enhanced by the integration of this new artwork, and its location within the centre’s public spaces will encourage building users, visitors, and neighbours to reflect on the role of women in society.”

Emma Underhill, Founder & Artistic Director, UP Projects said:
“We are delighted to be collaborating with UCL Public Art to curate and produce the Anita Harding Memorial. This is a fantastic opportunity for UP Projects to apply our knowledge and experience of curating monuments including the National Windrush Monument at London Waterloo Station, and draw on our ongoing critical thinking around how public memorials can both commemorate individuals, and also play a role in collectively imagining new futures. Our shortlist includes a vibrant mix of exceptional women artists who will be developing proposals that will not only celebrate Anita Harding’s remarkable life and achievements in the field of neurology, but will also empower and inspire the communities that she represented, namely women and girls in science.”

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Source: ION DRI programme