Displaying the Researched Body: Growing Cell Portraits in a Medical Museum

In Heirloom, artist Gina Czarnecki and scientist John Hunt grow portraits of the artist’s daughters from the daughters’ own cells onto glass casts of their faces. This required the development of novel scientific techniques to allow the growth of human cells in a gallery. Heirloom was exhibited at Medical Museion as a part of the EU Creative Europe project Trust Me, I’m an Artist. Here, the authors discuss three key issues raised by the artwork and its curation; (1) consent and ownership with regard to bodily materials, (2) biological portraiture and identity, and (3) DIY and depicting the future.