www.rachelarmstrong.me | TEDGlobal 2009 Fellow talk: Diagnosing Helen
Dr. RACHEL
I believe that everyone has a picture with which we are intimately connected. But we are not the authors. We are the intended recipients and these images have the ability to influence our lives.
Some of us even have the good fortune to meet them.
In fact, the reason I am here today is because my picture FOUND ME.
I was a junior doctor at the time and trying to figure out what the connection was between the natural sciences and their application to real people in medical practice.
So the intrusion of my picture into my thoughts was not unwelcome.
The composition of the picture is odd, whatever your profession. A pair of hands holding a dissected brain framed against crumpled velvet and mounted on a light box.
I responded to the artwork in the only way I knew how. I began to diagnose it.
And so I noticed the hands.
The bases of the nails were sunken which suggested that their owner had a chronic illness.
And because this was no ordinary picture, this observation affected me in an unusual way. I felt that the missing person was in mortal peril. And so, I tracked them down.
Helen Chadwick, an artist and Turner Prize nominee, met me in her kitchen where I held her hands over the kitchen table to examine them. More like a fortuneteller than a doctor. But it was my life that was analysed during the consultation rather than Helens.
She caused me to reflect on things that I took for granted.
Helen observed that I spoke clumsily using a lot of Latin words. That I described differences between things rather than their connections. And that she was in fine health but would go and see her doctor as soon as she got the chance.
We were opposites.
So. We had to collaborate.
I wrote a piece on Helens work for the Venice Biennale catalogue and got her into medical laboratories where we photographed unusual specimens. Then I took her to science parks where we spoke to experts in virtual reality and speculated on whether it was possible to bring these oddities back to life in the virtual world.
Helen died unexpectedly at the age of 42.
I was invited to give a speech at her funeral and as I went to mount the pulpit a young man tugged at my arm. He asked my name and introduced himself as the admitting doctor when Helen died. He said that she asked after me and wished she had taken more care of her health.
I thought that I would dissolve in a puddle of grief but as looked up from the pulpit I noticed that I was at eye level with some porcelain cherubs that had sparkling charcoal eyes, just like Helens.
So I spoke to her directly.
I thanked her for helping me realise that we are at a beginning of a renaissance where art and science are linked together.
The drawing you see is an alchemical symbol, the snake eating its tail drawn using a glow in the dark bacterial culture. It symbolises the new experimental space that I have since created over the last ten years that brings together science, art and architecture.
Helen showed me that we needed to move out of our knowledge comfort zones if we are going to make new observations about the world.
And to work together across disciplines we need to share a common vision of humanity.
As I thanked my mentor I thought I saw the charcoal eyes winking in acknowledgment.
And I realised that I still had not let go of her hands
Rachel Armstrong:
TEDGlobal Fellow talk 2009: Diagnosing Helen
ARMSTRONG
MA [Cantab] BMBCh [Oxon]
Image with permission from The Henry Moore Foundation and David Notarius
