Description:Jacqueline Donachie
DM, 2002
The artist writes her story of a genetical disorder which has affected certain members of her family including her father, brother, sister and niece. This disorder is called Myotonic Dystrophy (DM), it affects around 1 in 8000 people in the UK. Symptoms are primarily muscle stiffness (myotonia) and muscle wasting (dystrophy). At this time there is no cure.
In researching DM, Donachie read of a place in Quebec, Canada, '...that had an instance of the disease ten times that of the national average...' On 28th August 2001, Donachie travelled to Canada for a seven day trip to investigate the disease. She took with her Professor Keith Johnson and Dr Darren Monckton, both of whom are from the IBLS Division of Molecular Genetics at the University of Glasgow. Donachie's sister also attended making up the group of one artist, one professor, one doctor and one DM sufferer.
The photographs are candid portraits of sufferers, doctors, researchers and students (from the University of Glasgow). The text which accompanies the photographs informs the reader of the subjects' names, professions, locations and, in the case of suferers, other relatives affected by DM.
The project was supported by a Research Award from the SciArt Consortium, with additional support from Copus, the UK Science Communication Partnership.