Inheritance by Jill Mueller & Paloma Tendero
Thursday 13th February - Wednesday 30th April 2025
The Street Gallery, University College Hospital
UCLH Arts & Heritage is excited to announce our newest exhibition, Inheritance, which explores the impact of genetic inheritance on the lives and practices of London-based artists Jill Mueller and Paloma Tendero. The artworks on display have been created in response to their experiences with inherited genetic mutations: a breast cancer gene mutation (BRCA1) and polycystic kidney disease (PKD). Through their personal stories, Jill and Paloma tap into universal themes, reflecting on the human condition and the inherited narratives that shape us.
INHERITANCE: Exploring Health Through Collage
Wednesday, 16 April | 17:30 - 19:00
Join us for an engaging session with artists Jill Mueller and Paloma Tendero as they introduce their thought-provoking exhibition, "Inheritance." This workshop will feature a discussion with the artists who explore health and illness, designed to ignite your creativity and spark meaningful conversations.
Participate in a brief creative writing activity that will encourage you to connect with your own experiences regarding health and body. You’ll then have the opportunity to create a personal collage using magazine images, colours, and words, reflecting your relationship with your body and medical inheritance.
To secure your free place on the workshop, please use the link provided here.
Jill Mueller
Jill Mueller is an American-British interdisciplinary artist whose practice brings together visual arts, creative writing, story, and research. In her work, she weaves together documentary and imaginary worlds to explore issues related to health, our relationship to nature, and how we make meaning of our experiences. She holds an MA in Art and Science with distinction from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and is an Honorary Lecturer at University College London’s Institute for Women’s Health. 'See Me Through This,' a collaborative project with photographer Maja Daniels that explores Jill's experience with a breast cancer gene mutation, was featured in the Financial Times Weekend Science & Photography Issue and was a finalist for the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize at Duke University's Centre for Documentary Studies.
Instagram: @jillmariemueller
"There are 5,711 nucleotides in the BRCA1 gene we all carry, an organised jumble of letters. Somewhere within those As, Cs, Ts and Gs, my personal flaw awaits. I am determined to find it. To look it in the eye. To know where it stands. As if, somehow, seeing it will help me to understand.
On impulse I type out the gene in its entirety, letter by letter on an old typewriter. This is not an easy task—it is a labour of love; it is a labour of desperation and madness. Keeping my place in the code while also watching my fingers type on inclined rows of keys is impossible. I regularly stop and push hard on the key with the left-facing arrow, jumping back a space to erase the error that I’d just introduced into the code. The faint remnants of these errors accumulate, and after a while my eyes are drawn only to them.
I tear up the page and begin again. I progress slowly, travelling toward the point where my DNA stops working. I change the ribbon from black ink to red when I reach the location of my mutation, and my fingers stumble along the broken path beyond it.
I pull the finished page from the typewriter and run my fingers across 1000's of slightly indented shapes. A collection of letters form a long paragraph that is my body: My breasts and femininity. Motherhood and menopause. Fear and freedom. A statement and a question."
"Reconstruction.
Constructing, cutting, trimming, adding, taking away. We are the builders, the decorators, the beautifiers. Organic and synthetic objects pieced together with glue and tape and pins. Add-ons and edits.
I spent over an hour working with leaves and gold-leaf, creating an improved prosthetic that is inserted into the plant, the picture, replacing the healthy leaf that we cut out. Now looking at the newly arranged still-life, I can’t help but smile. It’s beautiful. It makes me feel beautiful—my genetic inheritance and this process beautiful. How is that possible? To look at a temporary thing—an abstract concept made physical as a still-life—and feel a connection to it. To be changed by it.
amend
: to put right; especially: to make emendations in (as a text)
: to change or modify for the better: improve
: to alter especially in phraseology; especially: to alter formally by modification, deletion, or addition
: to reform oneself"
“I had been struggling to be creative—to not lose my identity as artist to patient. If I’m to come through this whole, the two must coexist.
Maja begins collecting imagery and I collect words. Alternate ways into an experience. With each exchange we are inspired to make more. We are inspired to create. We allow a project to organically grow, in the clinic and studio, out in the world, through language and images and thread. We weave a path as we walk it. My creative practice transforms along with my body.
The idea of this medical process existing also as a project saves me from drowning in the emotional immediacy of a health crisis. It allows me to swim forward with the tide.”
Paloma Tendero
Paloma Tendero is a Spanish-born visual artist who works across photography and sculpture, exploring themes around genetic inheritance, hereditary illness, identity, and cycles of life. Paloma holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts from Complutense University in Madrid and an MA in Photography from London College of Communication, where she won a mentorship prize wither project Inside Out. She has exhibited widely and was selected for several artist-in-residence programmes, including Sarabande, the Alexander McQueen Foundation. Recent group exhibitions include “Headstrong: Women and Empowerment” at the Centre for British Photography; PhotoLondon: “Writing her own Script”; “Body Language” at Messums Gallery; and “A Picture of Health” at Arnolfini Arts Centre.
Instagram: @palomatendero
The gallery can be accessed through the main entrance of University College Hospital, 235 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BU.
There is ramped access and manual doors situated next to the revolving entrance. For detailed accessibility information, please visit AccessAble. The exhibition space tends to be quieter during the weekend.
About UCLH Arts & Heritage
UCLH Arts & Heritage is the creative health programme that serves UCLH NHS Foundation Trust and its surrounding community. We are funded entirely by charitable donations and are committed to providing a welcoming, uplifting environment for all patients, visitors and staff through the use of a varied and stimulating arts programme.
UCLH Arts & Heritage receives its funding from UCLH Charity and the Friends of UCLH.
Website: uclh.nhs.uk/arts
Email: uclh.
