Talking viruses with Luke Jerram

Viruses and bacteria are microscopic – you can’t see them, but they’re everywhere, from work surfaces and your keyboard to probiotic drinks and petri dishes. We catchup with the artist who has developed a unique way to visualise these minute microbes by creating glass sculptures

Luke Jerram is an artist who has created sculptures of E. coli and viruses – including swine flu, HIV and smallpox – from glass. These sculptures have been on display at the Wellcome Trust and the Smithfield Gallery, and are currently on display at the Courtauld Institute in London

He is also a research fellow within the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton and has been awarded a £225,000 grant from EPRRC to design, build and tour his new artwork Aeolus. Aeolus is an acoustic wind pavilion, an investigation into acoustics, wind and architecture inspired by the wind towers of Yadz in Iran.

Here, Laboratory News caught up with Luke to ask him what inspired him to create the sculptures, and how he made them from such a delicate material.

What prompted your interest in viruses?

The series is a reflection of my interest in how images of phenomena are represented and presented to the public. I’m colour blind and this has given me a natural interest in exploring the edges of perception. Often images of viruses are taken in black and white on an electron microscope and then they are coloured artificially using Photoshop. Sometimes that will be for scientific purposes but other times it will be just to add emotional content or to make the image more attractive. The problem is that you end up with the public believing that viruses are these brightly coloured objects. These are often portrayed in newspapers as having an air of scientific authenticity and objective truth, whereas actually that isn’t the case. You can end up with some images that potentially promote fear.

Why did you decide to make the sculptures in glass?

With 3D sculptures, there’s a tangibility you can’t get from flat pictures. There are diagrams of a virus and then there are photographs of a virus from electron microscopes. The purpose of a diagram is to communicate details in a very clear and concise way, whereas the scientific photos of viruses do something different. And a 3D representation makes you look at it in another, different, way.

How did you create the sculptures?

The sculptures were designed with virologist, Dr Andrew Davidson from the University of Bristol, and he advises me on the detail, mostly through my drawings. They were made in collaboration with glassblowers Kim George, Brian Jones and Norman Veitch.

Did you come across any problems or constraints?

Scientists aren't able to answer many of the questions I ask them, such as how the RNA is exactly fitted within the capsid. At the moment, camera technology can't answer these questions either. There are also the limitations of the medium to take into account. Some of my designs simply can't be created in glass. Some are simply too fragile and gravity would cause them to collapse under their own weight. There's a very careful balancing act that needs to take place, between exploring current scientific knowledge and the limitations of glassblowing techniques.

What do you hope to achieve through creating this artwork?

I hope they’ll get a sense of the beauty of virology. But also there’s that fascinating tension between something that is very beautiful but which also dangerous and is having a terrible impact on humanity.

Have you had any feedback from people who’ve seen them?

I had a letter in September from someone who’d seen a photo of the glass sculpture of HIV, they said they couldn’t stop looking at it. They said: Knowing that millions of those guys are in me, and will be a part of me for the rest of my life. Your sculpture, even as a photo, has made HIV much more real for me than any photo or illustration I've ever seen. It's a very odd feeling seeing my enemy, and the eventual likely cause of my death, and finding it so beautiful.