Leah Heiss

5 November: Leah’s residency work to be on ABC’s New Inventors, 8pm and ABC Radio National By Design, approx. 3.30pm.

RMIT Gallery
344 Swanston St
Melbourne

liminal of or relating to the limen or threshold

liminal is a body of work that has been developed at the threshold of art + science. Leah Heiss has spent the past 10 months working with nanotechnologists to develop wearable works which address the emotional in therapeutic design. The outcome is a collection of jewellery scale artefacts and vessels which are both delicate yet compelling in their curative applications.

Two primary collections will be exhibited during liminal: diabetes + arsenic. diabetes is a range of jewellery which works in tandem with NanoVic’s transdermal patches that allow insulin to be administered through the skin, replacing syringes. arsenic encompasses a series of vessels which act to remove arsenic from water and are designed for people in transit in areas where arsenic is prevalent in well water (e.g. India, Bangladesh, United States).

As an artist Leah is interested in augmenting the emotional relationship between people and their cherished possessions through the agency of nanotechnology. liminal questions how we might ‘enable’

our personal artefacts with extra functionalities above and beyond the aesthetic – the power to heal, correct, and treat our physical ailments?

19 November 2008: in.tangible.scape.s exhibition, Belgium. Heiss will be travelling to Belgium to exhibit her work in the in.tangible.scape.s exhibition and present her research at the launch of the in.tangible.scape.s book.

Leah Heiss website: http://www.elasticfield.com/index.htm

Leah Heiss blog: http://heiss.anat.org.au/