Johanna Zellmer

Sequenced

2024

Sequenced is the beginning of a new body of jewellery collars. I'm continuing  to use Illumina flow cells, waste products of the data collection technology known as DNA sequencing. Flow cells are laminated glass slides, secured in plastic frames containing RFID chips and anodized aluminium. I dismantle the units and transform each material with heat. Using lost-wax casting, I melt €0.20 and €0.50 cent coins to transform the frames into hard cash. The slides fuse with glass-headed sewing pins in my ceramic and enameling kilns. DNA traces are erased, barcodes discolour and distort, aluminium reticulates and RFID chips sear. I then heat plastic frames with jewellery torches to build the material compilations of each collar segment, transforming instruments for measuring biological data into phantastic, jewel-like organisms. In this work, the histories of science and jewellery, physically and metaphorically part of the existence of our species, converge. Fused and layered, the work maps relationships.