Making the invisible visible - 2018

In September 2018 I was selected by Historic England for their national exhibition ‘Immortalised’ which was held at The Workshop, Lambeth, London. Ten artists, architects and designers from across the UK and Europe were commissioned to produce designs for a monument to people who have been forgotten or overlooked by history. I chose to make a sculpture about a great woman of science whose story has taken a long time to emerge. ‘Making the invisible visible’ is a three dimensional optical illusion containing a portrait of the scientist Rosalind Franklin and her famous image of DNA, photograph 51. Franklin’s pioneering work made the double helix visible but she remained invisible herself receiving little credit for her research and images which were critical to the breakthrough made by James Watson and Francis Crick.  Along with Franklin’s colleague Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize for one of the biggest discoveries in the history of science while Rosalind Franklin, was forgotten. To symbolise her pioneering work and the way her story has belatedly come to light, the images in the sculpture are hidden within a complex structure of suspended wires which only become visible when viewed from a specific angle.

Film - John Coombes