THE METHOD BEHIND THE MADNESS

SARAH ALDRIDGE - COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING (MATERIALS SCIENCE)

FUNDED BY: EPSRC

This slice through a 3D reconstruction is from a micro-CT scan of a human distal radius, the wrist bone. Rather than being a solid lump of bone, joints tend to be made up of a sponge-like structure called trabecular or cancellous bone. This structure allows for bone marrow and blood vessels to saturate these environments, providing space for valuable blood cell sythesis and blood flow.

Many people think that a bone is a fixed, unmoving property, but in reality, living bone is constantly under reconstruction and refinement to adapt to external forces. What appears to be a tangled web of trabecular bone, is actually carefully dispersed to provide support in areas that need it most, and distributes forces across a much larger area to prevent breakages. This can be seen from the directionality of the structures, and the increase in thickness towards the edges of the bone.

CANVAS OF RURAL CHILDHOOD:
EBBS AND FLOWS OF POVERTY

TANJIL SOWGAT - COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY

FUNDED BY: BBSRC, ESRC, Newton Fund, UKAID, Ministry of Science and Technology (India) and IAA fund, Swansea University

In collaboration with: Dr Sergei Shubin and Alik Raptan

This is a photo of a painting (by Alik Raptan) where a child is drawing on a canvas his thoughts about life in rural Bangladesh. His composition is built around a blue fishing net of his fish farmer father. It appears to be overpowered by an abrupt intrusion of clay and mud representing land and the lack of access to it that shapes his and his family’s future. The drawing also shows floods that come with the cyclones and the water crisis in his community. Again, the spiral motion represented in the painting shows the complex inner workings of a child’s life that is influenced by ebbs and flows of poverty. The painting was created during a workshop with artists in PACONDAA project. Extracting ideas from the interviews with poor children, the artist here captures the life and imaginations of poor children in rural Bangladesh.