Artist Statement:
Glass Skin displays video of my skin’s imperfections and sites of previous surgeries through a 30-pound piece of cast glass that is embossed with DNA. The sequence depicted is known to code for a protein involved in the onset of melanoma. This sculpture was made in response to nearly contracting skin cancer myself and explores the personal anxiety and mistrust of the self that results from knowing one’s hereditary weaknesses, especially at a time when medical genetic testing is flourishing. By the end of the decade genetic testing will become part of everyone’s routine medical history, allowing us to see the fundamental structure of our biological composition with pinpoint precision. Though such knowledge will make us aware of what diseases we are likely to contract, most heredity-linked diseases don’t have a cure and the genetic tests won’t tell us when we will get them. Thus, the knowledge that genetics ushers forth comes with a compromise: you may know your fate but you will have to bear the physiological stress of not being able to avoid it.