Anna Dumitriu

Where art intersects with the so-called hard sciences, we may encounter the widespread preconception that art's only use is to illustrate scientific data. In this milieu, artist-researchers continually come up against the cliché of bohemia and art for mere aesthetic use. However, many of the projects that have come out of these crossovers have proven the value of art, particularly in advancing research on little-explored scientific topics and bringing an alternative vision to established fields. Anna Dumitriu has spent most of her career demonstrating this to the general public through the profusion of her projects and the diversity of her collaborations.

Born on the outskirts of Brighton and raised in Hastings, England, Anna comes from a modest background. At school she is interested in science, particularly physics, but drops out of biology at the age of 14. The study of bacteria is not part of the curriculum, and she prefers nuclear physics and archaeology, which she continues to study until her final year. She passes A-levels, in Computer Science, Art, and Archaeology and then takes an Art Foundation course at Hastings College, becoming one of the first people in her family to pursue higher education. She then studies BA (Hons) Fine Art (Painting) at Brighton University and in the early 1990s goes on a student trip to Romania, where she runs workshops in children's homes. There, she makes an intriguing discovery which leaves a lasting impression on her and becomes the subject of her degree thesis: the Last Judgement fresco in the monastery of Voroneț. The work is famous for the mystery that has long hung over the recipe for the "blue" used, and for the fact that the paintings on the outside facades have been better preserved than those inside for more than five centuries.

After finishing her Master's degree in painting, she starts to take an interest in and explore the use of the World Wide Web, before it becomes widespread in our homes. At that time, it is slow and the quality of the information is basic but enough for Anna to realise that the information transmitted by print and broadcast media is only partial; in 1996, an epidemic of Escherichia coli kills 21 people in Scotland, and the bacterium, presented as a foreign body, is demonised. In reality though, other strains of E. coli are a natural part of our intestinal microbiome. These bugs are even helpful to our digestive system. Intrigued by the impact of the lack of information on ourselves as a society, Anna decides to make it her battle horse; to explore the facts around researched scientific subjects, and to highlight the data that we never hear about and that could change our perception of the subject.

So, in order to deepen her knowledge, the artist understands that collaboration with scientists is essential. She soon contacts institutions, starting with Brighton and Sussex Medical School near her home. At that time, she still paints, but she takes inspiration from scientific journals for the themes of her works. One of her first collaborations is with Dr John Paul, a specialist in medical microbiology, with whom she undertakes a laboratory-based project where he teaches her microbiology and how to document her work in the lab book. As time goes by, her creative process evolves along with the mediums she uses, and becomes more and more part of the scientific framework, particularly in biology.

She learns to manipulate living and developing systems during the making of her work, and is very interested in infectious diseases; she touches on dangerous pathogens which require killing them in the laboratory and in the presence of an expert, or working with extracted DNA for safety reasons before displaying them to the public. Although Anna immerses herself in the research of her chosen subject, she prefers to let her ideas evolve through her research process and experiments with microbes rather than imposing a fixed idea from the start. She interrogates her observations and draws out what she feels is relevant, thus moving towards making the piece more concrete. The DNA or killed microbes are integrated into the artwork and act as a relic of the laboratory process.

Biology is now an integral part of her art, but Anna is not content to simply mix it with painting. Eager to evolve her art, she learns new skills whenever the need arises to create a new artwork. Thus she deploys her skills in areas such as natural dyeing or linen production, and works directly with craftsmen, inspired by Jeff Koons but with the difference that she wants to learn their techniques and use them herself. Moreover, the influences of Constantin Brancusi are felt in the choice of materials, of Alberto Burri in the aesthetic approach, and of Eduardo Kac, more generally, in relation to the Bio-Art movement.

In 2007 she joins the European Mobile Lab for Interactive Art, a pioneering EU-funded project in collaboration between artists and scientists. She participates in workshops all over Europe, and makes important encounters for her career; in Greece, she meets some of the people with whom she is now working on her project Unruly Objects.

With an obvious attraction to digital culture and new technologies, the artist is also deepening her digital skills and diversifying her collaborations; she is doing a residency at the Centre for Neuroscience and Robotics at the University of Sussex, where she discovers Artificial Life. She is interested in AI and AL issues, and regularly integrates them into her artistic direction.

Over time, Anna's mediums, her questioning and with it the nature of her artworks, become more complex. Archaeology and historical objects, which we usually see in museums, become an important part of her work; she seizes them, modifies them to give them a new life filled with exhibitions. In 2014, she exhibits Pneumothorax Machine, a piece that is part of the project The Romantic Disease, which takes the machine (of the same name) to compress the lungs of tuberculosis patients. As usual, she recovers an old model which she sculpts, engraves, and impregnates with bacteria relating to its original use. In the same vein, while in residence at the University of Surrey, she collaborates with a bio-archaeologist to make aDNA (a = ancient); Anna obtains a bovine femur prepared by the Department of Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine, learns to carve it in order to incorporate bovine tuberculosis DNA, that she worked with Professor Mike Taylor to learn to extract from human remains found in the the Siberian permafrost. The piece has already been shown in three exhibitions this year alone.

Finally, by touring exhibitions of her creations, Anna makes their history known to the general public, which in a way corresponds to the definition of conservation.
For her, the work of art does not fully exist without the contact of an audience, creation and exhibition go hand in hand. Without the need to verbalise all her ideas, she lets the viewers question her in return through her pieces. Today, she exhibits in major international institutions, whether in museums, art centres or scientific institutes such as the CDC or Waag Society. Determined to find answers, she continues to develop large-scale projects and maintain her long-standing collaborations.

At first glance, Anna Dumitriu did not seem predestined to become a visual arts pioneer specialising in Bio-Art.

By listening to her instincts, she has broken through the image of a simple illustrator, and taken her practice to a whole new level to establish herself among the great contemporary artists.