Artist Svenja Kratz is standing in a gallery, hands on hips, looking at her newest installation. She wears a lab coat and latex gloves as The Contamination of Alice is assembled at RMIT's gallery on Swanston Street. A pair of protective goggles sit folded on the neck of her black top.
Dr Kratz is about to add the DNA of an 11-year-old girl, who died in 1973, to a cloudy agar solution and pour it into a face mould.
In the coming hour the solution will set, jelly-like, and be upturned so the face looks up at the ceiling like a death mask.
Little is known about the girl whose cell lines are a key ingredient to Dr Kratz' art.
What is known is that she was caucasian and died of bone cancer in 1973. Her body was then donated to science. The sarcoma osteogenic cell line that Dr Kratz used came from diseased cells in the girl's leg.
It seems ironic that it is the cancerous cells that caused her death that survive – in effect letting the girl Dr Kratz has named Alice live on, decades after her life ended so prematurely.
"The other creepy thing is that her cells would now far outweigh her body if she were alive," Dr Kratz said. "You would have all these cells that would fill rooms and rooms because they are being used by research institutes all over the world."
Between now and when the exhibition closes on February 21 the face mask will change – though Dr Kratz doesn't know exactly what it will look like in three months.
Fungus and mould will grow on the mask, which will sit under a glass dome. It could grow in red and yellow blobs or in fluffy cloud-like shapes. Mottled splotches of greenish bread mould are also likely to appear. It just depends how the cell lines respond to the conditions in the gallery.
"The piece is about transformation and the links between environment and genetics, so I really didn't want to control the conditions," Dr Kratz said. "In life, everything exists in a state of potential for transformation. It just depends on the environmental influences."
With a PhD in contemporary art and biotechnology from the Queensland University of Technology, Dr Kratz was able to do all the DNA extraction and cell work herself.
Another 11-year-old girl, the daughter of one of Dr Kratz' friend's, did a facial impression which was used to make the mould for the mask.
The eighth installation in an ongoing series The Contamination of Alice Instance #8 was commissioned by Jonathan Parsons for Experimenta Recharge, the sixth biennial of media art, which opens on Friday.
Dr Kratz' installation is the centrepiece of a five-room exhibition at RMIT's gallery, featuring works by 18 Australian and international artists.
