Worlds #0318, from the series Worlds
This object was selected for the collection as part of an annual student-led collecting initiative undertaken by the 2022-2023 Block Museum Student Associates (BMSA), an interdisciplinary group of Northwestern undergraduates:
Mayan Alvarado-Goldberg ’24, Neuroscience
< br/ >Solome Bezuneh ’24, Communication Studies
< br/ > Carolina Carret ’23, Legal Studies
< br/ > Vitoria Monteiro de Carvalho Faria ’23, Art History and Economics
< br/ > Karan Gowda ’21, Biological Sciences and Global Health Studies
< br/ > Chayda Harding ’22, History
Zeki Hirsch ’24, Art History
Hyohee Kim ’22, Learning Sciences and Asian American Studies
Katy Kim ’23, Art History and Political Science
Nozizwe Msipa ’24, Communication Studies
Margeaux Rocco ’23, Economics
Bengi Rwabuhemba ’23, Anthropology
Bobby Yalam ‘24, Comparative Literary Studies
Hank Yang ‘24, Journalism and Political Science
This work is from a project titled My DNA by artist and biochemist Michael Koerner. Koerner has said that it is the only project he will continue working on until he dies. To make these images, Koerner applied chemicals to metal plates prepared with other chemical solutions to cause reactions that create colors and shapes. This unpredictable process parallels Koerner’s lack of control over his own genetics, permanently altered by his mother’s exposure to gamma radiation during the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. Worlds #0318 contains irregular silver-white geometric shapes clustered around a large disc suggestive of a planet or cell. These works consider the lasting effects of nuclear war both within an individual’s body and across multiple generations.
Read more about the selection process in Stories from the Block.
