As part of a fundraiser to help cover the costs of building the new Francis Crick Institute, Crick's granddaughter, along with other artists, has donated a sculpture of DNA, ScienceInsider reports.
Kindra Crick tells ScienceInsider that her sculpture drew inspiration from the many photographs of her grandfather in front of a chalkboard with notations on it. One strand of her sculpture "is this black, dusty chalkboard with quickly scribbled notations" and that, she says, "represents science in terms of layers of ideas, and the beauty of the diagram." The other strand is a vibrant blue with a golden helix as well as abstract forms that change over the length of the strand. " It's an abstraction of cellular life, or in my practice, I use this imagery to communicate infectious ideas," Crick says. "Not only can people pass on their genetics, but also their ideas, which metaphorically grow and mutate."
Her sculpture as well as one from Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and others will be auctioned off at an event Cancer Research UK, one of the six partners behind the institute, organized at Christie's next week, though auction will continue after that online.
"Artists and scientists are both curious about the world and want to answer fundamental questions," Crick adds at ScienceInsider.