Para-Site-Seeing

Para-site-seeing.org is a travel blogging portal for the Leishmania parasite, an art/science collaboration created by Jen Southern and Rod Dillon and co-commissioned with the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research.  Through the portal multiple narratives unfold, as parasites blog, tweet, instaram and vlog their way around the world, tracing their lives in the wild, as experimental subjects in labs, transforming themselves on board sand flies as vehicles for multi-species encounters. Follow para-site-seeing from the parasites first out-of-body experience in the 1960’s and witness its first moments emerging from cryopreservation. Meet Leishmania at our para-site-seeing cellfie booth during Neon festival!

What does lifespan mean for a parasite that reproduces as asexual clones and is revived after 30 years suspended in a deep frozen state? How far does the digital footprint of a parasite stretch online?  This work centers on the deadly Leishmania parasite that exploits human conflict and poverty to inhabit humans and cause the disease known as Leishmaniasis.

The Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research is based at the University of Dundee. A new potential treatment for visceral leishmaniasis – one of the world’s major neglected diseases – has recently been discovered by Dundee’s researchers with the results published in Nature. This co-commission is part of the wider public engagement programme of the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research, which is generously supported by the Wellcome Trust.