This Fatal Subject

Valerie received a £30,000 Arts Award from The Wellcome Trust, together with fellow project originator, artist Susan Aldworth, and with sculptor Eleanor Crook.

The award funded a new project This Fatal Subject, researching the science of the physical dying process down to cellular level, at the Gordon Museum of Pathology, where Valerie is Poet in Residence, and with scientists at Kings College London Medical School, and at Newcastle University's Institute of Ageing and Health, and Institute of Neuroscience, to produce cross-disciplinary work for public exhibition and publication.

A unique opportunity to have access to cutting edge medical science, the award was given partly on the merits of the collaborative project, This Fatal Subject, and partly on the participants' track records and achievements.

The Gordon museum is not open to the public; it is a teaching resource for Kings College London, located on the Guy's campus in London. Valerie's partners in the shared residency are conceptual artist Susan Aldworth and anatomical sculptor Eleanor Crook, now both Artists in Residence.

This builds upon an open-ended residency, formalising an arrangement granting Valerie access to study the specimens and write about them, made with the Curator, Mr Bill Edwards whose kindness in allowing her to visit and to share her work she acknowledges with gratitude.

Valerie has been writing poetry on a forensic/anatomical theme for some time, winning a Northern Writer's Time to Write Award in 2006, and has worked in collaboration with the artists on This Fatal Subject, involving text-based artwork, performance, and 3D poetry. It includes Valerie's innovative new 'moving poetry' form, part of an animated film made with Susan Aldworth: Valerie's poetry sequence on Apoptosis (programmed cell death) partly 'dies' to change form and reverse its meaning.

The resulting work was first of all exhibited at the Gordon Museum, including some art and writing by medical students who took part in a drawing and writing workshop in the dissection room, using human cadavers as subjects. In January - February 2009 it formed a very successful public exhibition at the Old Operating Theatre Museum, London, which was selected as a Guardian Guide Pick of the Week. One of the poems, A Litter of Moons, won 2nd prize in Mslexia poetry competition: read the poem here.

Valerie worked with many scientists and has a great deal of material from their new researches, from which to produce a new collection of poetry. This project, and the relationships built up with scientists at Newcastle University, also led to her current Residence at IAH, and to her co-authoring a scientific article on Near Death Experiences, and a chapter of a new book on consciousness, with Professor Elaine Perry, neurochemical pathologist at IAH and at KCL.