Celebrating the Homologous Hope Sculpture for the Basser Research Center for BRCA |
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At the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine (PCAM), Penn Medicine recently celebrated an uplifting sculpture that makes a big statement about the connection between science and hope. “That connection is the basis for the Basser Research Center for BRCA,” said Ralph Muller, CEO of the UPHS, “and we are glad to have this striking work to remind us of our ambition to bring hope and an end to BRCA cancers.”
New York-based internationally renowned artist Mara Haseltine’s brilliant, dazzling work, Homologous Hope, was created especially for the Basser Research Center for BRCA. It literally represents the spectacular breakthroughs accomplished by Penn Medicine’s world-leading clinician-researchers, including Chi Dang, director of the Abramson Cancer Center, and Susan Domchek, executive director of the Basser Research Center for BRCA.
Since graduating from Oberlin College and then obtaining a master’s degree, a dual degree in new genres and sculpture, at the San Francisco Art Institute, Ms. Haseltine has embarked on an international career that has seen her work as a sculptor throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia as well as at the National Museum of Trinidad and Tobago in the Port of Spain, Trinidad. She was a recent artist-in-residence for Imagine Science Films and currently serves as a professor at the New School for Social Research.
Created in a ribbon-diagram formation, the Homologous Hope sculpture illustrates how a healthy cell repairs DNA that causes breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers. It is an accurate depiction of the part of the BRCA2 gene that is responsible for DNA repair. The BRCA2 gene is crucial in the process of DNA repair. The repair occurs in three stages, as illustrated by the use of purple and green LED lights within portions of the piece. The sculpture celebrates the hope that the Basser Research Center—the first and only comprehensive BRCA-focused center of its kind—is giving to countless families and their loved ones.
From a distance, it may be difficult to grasp the enormity of Homologous Hope and the various components involved in its creation, but the full-scale piece took nearly three months to create.
Key features of the sculpture include:
• Nearly 560 pounds of carbon fiber twisted into three separate pieces that together form the 15’x6’x12’ piece
• Roughly 600 programmable LED lights
• A stainless steel ring weighing nearly 400 pounds from which the sculpture is suspended
Homologous Hope was installed in the Perelman Center over a period of six weeks, and took four days to be lifted from the ground.
See www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTrAj2hkfrg for a time-lapse video of the installation of the immense sculpture over the escalators.
Penn Medicine “values art as a way to bring meaning to the experience of pain and loss that are part of medicine.” Mr. Muller called the sculpture “a wonderful tribute to the substance as well as the spirit of the Basser Center.” Mindy and Jon Gray have given $30 million to create the Center to ensure that more and more families can be spared from BRCA-related cancers (Almanac January 28, 2014). They are alumni from the Class of 1992 who were among those who graduated from the University when Penn’s Commencement was held in the Civic Center.
The state-of-the-art PCAM now stands where the Art Deco Civic Center had been located for more than 70 years. PCAM was designed by internationally renowned architect Rafael Viñoly. The Perelman Center continues “the prominence of this space in the cultural life and, now, in the health of Philadelphia and beyond, serving as a regional, national and global hub for the finest in medical research, education and patient care,” added Mr. Muller. He thanks the Grays for all that they do to help treat and cure patients. The Center was established in memory of Mindy Gray’s sister Faith Basser, who died of ovarian cancer at age 44.
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