Osmosis: Drawing and Bio-Medical Science

Dr J ac Saorsa
Cardiff Metropolitan University, School of art and Design

jacsaorsa@hotmail.com

Abstract
Plant blindness: plants are the most important, least understood, and most taken-
for-granted of all living things (Wilkins 1988)

This paper will discuss a current research trajectory that is driven by contemporary drawing
practice as a creative and exploratory approach to the interpretation of the relation between
ethnobotany, the study of relations between people and plants, and biomedical science, in
specific relation to the treatment of cancer. It addresses the conference theme in terms of
the hermeneutic circularity between how knowledge authenticates drawing acts and how
drawing can be constructive of knowledge.
The term osmosis defines the physical process in plant organisms wherein solvent
molecules move through a semi-permeable membrane separating two solutions of differing
concentrations. In biological systems, osmosis serves to equalize these solute
concentrations. Drawing practice is here understood by analogy as a fluid process that
flows through the membrane that represents conventional understanding of human-plant
biomedical relation in terms of disease pathology. Drawing therefore becomes the vehicle
for the dissemination of the research through its defining of new equilibriums, which in turn
provoke alternative understandings.
Since Hippocrates, medicine has been considered as both art and science, and this project
embodies an intensive engagement, through drawing practice, with both sides of this
dichotomy in order to address fundamental issues concerned with the pathology and
treatment of disease. The research is contextualized in a philosophical approach that is
fundamentally based on the Deleuzean concept of the rhizome, itself a botanical referent,
and in adherence to the fundamental principles of the rhizome the aim is not to provide
definitive answers but rather to establish and engage with a reciprocal relation between
science and contemporary drawing practice in an innovative and experimental way.