This article draws on Rebecca Schneider's thoughts on performance within archival culture (2001) in order to examine the use of HeLa cells in recent artistic practice. HeLa is one of the most commonly used cell lines in scientific research, renowned for its 'immortality' in vitro. The HeLa cell line originated from cervical cancer cells that were taken from an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks in 1951. Lacks died eight months after the biopsy, but her cells - which were removed without her knowledge and consent - live on and multiply in scientific laboratories worldwide. As artists working in the biological arts attempt to reimagine the controversial narratives surrounding HeLa and Henrietta Lacks, this paper argues that employing biological materials such as HeLa cells in artistic practice often gives rise to a flesh-like 'object' that resists the archive that instead privileges documentary and object remains. In this respect, the use of HeLa cells in some artistic work is reminiscent of performance's challenge to traditional archival logic. Despite disappearing in death, documentation and even in the moment of the live encounter, HeLa and its attendant histories nevertheless remain in material and immaterial acts that these artworks and their documentary texts participate in. Such practices importantly prompt a reconceptualisation of our relationship to the body in light of the potential effects of contemporary biotechnological advancements on archival logic. It is this reconceptualisation which I suggest may be best approached, therefore, in dialogue with performance theory on appearance and disappearance within archival culture. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.
ORCID: 
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)