Exhibition: 'Ravelling, Unravelling' opens at Royal Institution

A UCL Slade School of Fine Art graduate and artist-in-residence at the university is opening an exhibition at the Royal Institution on Tuesday 12 May.

'Ravelling, Unravelling' is the result of a year-long Artist Residency by Naheed Raza (MA Fine Art 2007) in Mathematics, which has involved regular discussions with Professor Steven Bishop (UCL Mathematics), Dr Gert Van der Heijden (UCL Civil and Environmental Engineering) as well as researchers from CoMPLEX (UCL's Centre for Interdisciplinary Science) and UCL Hospitals.

The project, funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, has involved a creative response to topological and geometric investigations currently undertaken in biomedicine - specifically those relating to twisted, folded and ravelled structures which have significance both in science and art. The exhibition focuses on the theme of 'entanglement' as a linking thread connecting issues pertinent in art, medicine, literature and philosophy.

It will showcase:

• 'Silk' - a 16mm film depicting the reeling of the Golden Orb Weaver; a spider unique for the golden hue of the web it weaves, and which is of current biomedical interest because of its potential use as a biomaterial
• 'Mile of String' - a sculpture made entirely from twisted string evocative of spatial chaos, Einstein's warped Space-Time and the enigmatic coiled structures of DNA and proteins
• 'Ravel' - an animation produced in collaboration with animator Carl Fairweather fusing ideas from art and biology
• A series of intricate casts of arterio-venous malformations, abnormal vascular tangles appearing in the body during disease states.

There will be a reading by writer Steven Connor on the opening night and an opportunity to hear more about the works and the theme of 'entanglement' in an accompanying event on 19 May. Chaired by Francis McKee (Director of Contemporary Art, Glasgow), this will feature presentations by Professor Steven Bishop (UCL Mathematics), Professor Raoul Hennekam (UCLH Clinical Genetics), Professor Fritz Vollrath (Oxford Zoology) and Naheed Raza on a range of subjects from shifting sand dunes, the peculiar properties of spider silk and the relationship between ravelled structures on the body's surface and underlying disorder.

The Royal Institution is hosting the exhibition, which is free, until Thursday 28 May.
For more information follow the links above.

Image: 'Sculpture 445' by Naheed Raza.