Whistleblower, activist, and transgender women Chelsea Manning will tomorrow see the opening of her collaborative art collection, titled A Becoming Resemblance.
The collection is the result of a years-long project, which saw Manning send DNA samples from prison to 3D artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg. Beginning in 2015, Manning would send swabs of her cheeks and hair to Dewey-Hagborg via her lawyer.
Dewey-Hagborg had previously created a number of 3D portraits from DNA, which she would obtain by picking up cigarette butts, pieces of gum, and hair on the streets of New York City.
3D masks made from the DNA of Chelsea Manning. Source: Fridman Gallery (screenshot)
The project assisted Manning with having visibility at a time when she was 'faceless' inside a federal prison - her image was legally suppressed from 2013, until May this year.
In a statement on the Fridman Gallery's website, Manning said, "Prisons try very hard to make us inhuman and unreal by denying our image, and thus our existence, to the rest of the world.
"Imagery has become a kind of proof of existence. The use of DNA in art provides a cutting edge and a very postmodern—almost 'post-postmodern'—analysis of thought, identity, and expression.”
The exhibition will also broach the topic of gender, and Dewey-Hagborg saying that the portraits are meant to show that DNA does not necessarily tell you what gender a person is.
The opening of the collection will be the first time that Manning herself has seen the portraits.
The collection, which contains 30 3D-printed masks made from Manning's DNA, will debut at Fridman Gallery in Manhattan on August 2nd.
