Art Exhibition in Mori Art Museum, 2019/2020
Sugababe project collaborated with an Artist Diemut Strebe: This art project is the recreation of Vincent van Gogh’s left ear. We collected the chondrocytes from Lieuwe van Gogh, who is a 4th generation descendent of Vicent’s brother Theo, sharing the Y- chromosome in a direct male line and thus having one 16th of the genome of Vincent. Additionally, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in Lieuwe’s immortalized ear chondrocytes was substituted with mtDNA from Rosine Weenink. Rosine is a 3rd generation female descendant from Vincent Van Gogh’s mother, descending in an uninterrupted line and sharing the mtDNA with Vincent. These cybrid chondrocytes with DNA from both male and female descendants were expanded to sufficient numbers for seeding in the ear scaffolds, growth, and maintenance in the perfusion chamber for Sugababe as displayed in 2019/20 in Tokyo in the Mori Art Museum.
