CRISPR Dyshomeostasis? I know, it’s a mouthful, but I want to explain how it became the title for my artwork.

In a remarkable breakthrough in biochemistry in 2012, a woman called Jennifer Doudna discovered that our DNA could be spliced by using the protein Cas9 like a pair of scissors. This meant, for the first time ever, that genes could be edited within organisms. The technology involved is called CRISPR and its implications are far reaching.

Although it is true that we have been modifying genes for centuries in plants and animals, the question now arises: is it ethical to genetically alter the human embryo? The possibility is well within our grasp, but are we trespassing on God’s territory?

The problem is not that we should obstruct progress in technology or science, but rather that we humans, despite all the amazing knowledge we have accumulated, can still only see a tiny slice of the whole pie. I am not sure we fully comprehend how fragile, complex, diverse and intertwined our ecological system is on planet earth? I don’t think we can predict the butterfly ramifications that CRISPR technology could have on our lives.

Pulling all these strands together in my artwork I have used the Milky Way to represent our place in the universe. It is a spiral galaxy not unlike the spiral structure of DNA, so my Milky Way is constructed of DNA strands and X-chromosomes. I chose X-chromosomes because women are the bearers of new life and buried in the work is a woman’s face. None of these elements are immediately recognizable, but what I am trying to do is pose the question; will our quest to meddle with our DNA structure, so unbalance the equilibrium found in nature, that it will alter our world as we think we know it?