About the Micro-Residency
Our Atopic Art Micro-Residency is a partnership project between ASCUS Art & Science and Professor Sara Brown (University of Dundee), to invite two artists to respond to Professor Sara Brown’s research as part of a residency and art commission to produce new work that encompasses the themes of ‘the science of eczema’ and ‘living with eczema’.
In January 2017 artists Beverley Hood and Gordon Douglas took up their place as ‘Artists in Residence’ at Professor Sara Brown’s genetic research laboratory at the University of Dundee, to learn more about the condition of eczema, exposing them to cutting edge research that Sara’s lab carries out, to gain understanding of the causes of this medical condition and potential ways to treat it.

The artists spent a couple of days a week over Jan to April, on Brown Lab, to gain in-depth insight into eczema on a genetic and molecular level. The artists worked directly with Brown Lab’s research team, observing her laboratory-based research and spending time in her clinics. Both artists joined us in ASCUS Lab for the Edinburgh International Science Festival 2017 to deliver interactive and hands-on workshops to public audiences, to share the creative process and exchange ideas and experience together. The micro-residency culminated in the inaugural, Beyond Skin, at LifeSpace Science Art Research Gallery at the College of Life Sciences in the summer of 2017.
We Began as Part of the Body, by Beverley Hood, a multi-component digital artwork, inspired by the creative research gathered during her time as artists in residence in Professor Sara Brown’s eczema genetic research laboratory of Professor Sara Brown, will be on show as part of Being Human with the Centre for Biomedicine Self & Society and Inspace in November 2020.
Read more about Professor Sara Brown and her research
Read about Atopic Art: Expressions of Eczema – participatory art project
See below for insights and project updates, revealing the different approaches the artists employed as they spent time with Brown lab scientists, over the course of the micro-residency…