088776/Z/09/Z: Armamentarium

Project Summary:Armamentarium is an experimental project to visually unpack surgical instruments as material and metaphorical objects. Using photography the artist Elaine Duigenan will explore instruments' contradictory status as the therapeutic extension of the surgeons' hands and as objects designed to destroy living tissue. It will explore the symbolic associations of instruments and their physical properties, as crafted objects and the objects through which the body is crafted. Drawing on the rich historical collections of the Hunterian Museum and bringing together the expertise of surgeons, historians and instrument designers and manufacturers, it will reanimate the instrument as a thing of beauty and dread.

Grant Holder:Ms Briony Hudson

Organisation:Royal College of Surgeons of England

Financial Year:2008/2009