Billions and Billions (2012). 9” x 9”. Serratia marcescens,
agar, Petri dish, acrylic. Image courtesy the artist.
ZC: During my first year of grad school, I
struggled mightily to find a subject around
which to base my artistic study. Many ideas
came to mind but not a single one resonated
within me. One evening while I was doing what
most grad students do when they don’t want to
think about how they are spinning aimlessly—
binge watching Netflix—I stumbled across an
old TV show called “Cosmos.” Five minutes
into Carl Sagan’s introduction I was literally
yelling at the television, “That’s it! I love science, that’s what my art needs to be about!”
Right then and there I began to scribble down
countless ideas on work I could create. Eventually I became interested in bacteria as an
artistic medium—I was a microbiologist, after
all. As I do with most of my creative problem
solving, I said the problem out loud to myself,
“I need to find a genuine way to bring bacteria into my art,” and then let the ideas bounce
around in my subconscious for a week or so.
One day, when I was driving to school, the idea
popped into my head. I slammed my hands on
the steering wheel and said, “That’s it, I can use
radiation to make photographs in bacteria!” (It
occurs to me now that I do a lot of exclaiming
ideas out loud to myself.) After several months
of research I had my first photographic image
grown in living bacteria.
MG: What draws you to bacteria as a medium?
SciArt in America June 2014
ZC: The simplest answer is that, being a microbiologist, bacteria was what I knew. This
makes it seem a mere matter of convenience.
But in reality it goes much deeper than that.
Looking back on my days in the micro lab, I
recall always being fascinated by microorganisms. At the same time, they represent one of
the most fundamental yet complex forms of
life we have discovered. At first glance bacteria
seem so mundane and even gross, but when we
examine the intricate and incredibly intimate
relationship we have with them they become
something at which to marvel. There is even
recent research suggesting that bacteria can
significantly affect our daily cognitive functioning. Through my work, I can take this all but
invisible universe and bring it into the line of
sight of our everyday perspective. In retrospect,
I really should have seen this work coming. At
my first lab job out of undergrad, I used to take
pictures of plates of bacteria and even began to
draw pictures in the control plates of tests.
MG: If you could assemble a dream team of artists
and scientists to create a large project, who would you
choose and why? Can you briefly describe what you
might work on?
ZC: Without hesitation, I would call upon Carl
Sagan and Andy Warhol. Sagan for the obvious
reasons, but also because he worked to bring
the beauty and mystery of science into pop culture for everyone to experience. Warhol, on the
Darwin (2012). 9” x 9”. Serratia marcescens, agar,
Petri dish, acrylic. Image courtesy the artist.
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