Regina Hübner
Dear germinal center,
I love you. I have loved you from the day I met you, even before that, from the day I learnt about your existence. You are such a fascinating object. I love your shape, I love your dynamics, I love your purpose and determination, I love your mess and uncertainty. I love your transience, your essence and your diversity. There are so many of you yet you all share the same essence, you all carry the same evolution.
I would like to get to know you better, but so far I have been intimidated and shy. For now, I watch you, focusing my molecular lenses on all cells that you harbour and that together make you. It has been enough to satisfy my obsession and get to know you. I know I am not the only person obsessed by you. I am not the jealous type, I like seeing others love you too and expose you in poses that I had not seen through my eyes. You are always beautiful. But maybe in the future I will want more from you. Maybe talk to you, tease you a little, or push you in directions you do not want to go to see how you react.
How did you become so perfect? How will you be in thousands, millions of years? I wish I could see through your past and future evolutions. As much as I am frustrated by my own limitations, I live in the peaceful hope that the next generations, my children and their progeny, will get to know you and love you even more than I do.
Yours sincerely,
Pierre
Dear Pierre,
I love it that you love me. But I am wondering: do you really love me as a biological object? Or do you love the concept of me? The essence of what I do? It seems to me that by watching me, or should I say us since you are observing many of us, you try to understand our commonalities, not our singularities.
You scientists aim for the absolute model, the one equation that governs our behaviour as if there was only one germinal center. Do not forget that what makes us fascinating is our uniqueness, our adaptability, our history, our evolution. In your models, leave enough room for us to move and express our singularities. Look at us as a complex ecosystem of cities. Our inhabitants have stereotyped behaviors but they are all unique. Our streets are paved with the same asphalt but our maps are different. Our number and our complexity is our strength. Don’t you think evolution would have kept us simpler otherwise?
Keep that in mind, and keep watching us, we love it too!
All the best,
G.C.
“Letter from ME-researcher to you-object” and “Letter from YOU-object to me-researcher” by Pierre Milpied are part of Perception of Self and Nonself in Life – Dear Cell (transcriptions) by Regina Hübner, realised at IMéRA Marseille, 2019.
Pierre Milpied, Chargé de recherche, Group Leader, CIML Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy.
Research on Integrative B Cell Immunology.
Letter from ME-researcher to you-object (a/the Germinal Center) and Letter from YOU-object (a/the Germinal Center) to me-researcher, 2 July 2019.
Perception of Self and Nonself in Life is a project by Regina Hübner, realized with the collaboration of CIML Center of Immonology Marseille-Luminy and of Inmed Institute of Mediterranean Neurobiology, during her residency as Guest Researcher at IMéRA - Institut d'études avancées d'Aix-Marseille Université, in 2019 in Marseille.
The visual part of the project is entitled Dear Cell and it is composed by the videos Dear Cell (eyes), Dear Cell (letters), Dear Cell (transcriptions) and Dear Cell (cells).
17 Research Directors, Group Leaders and Professors of CIML and Inmed are the Protagonists of Dear Cell. They wrote a letter to their object of research and another letter to themselves, personifying their object of research. They showed their eyes. They provided the images of their objects of research.
Dear Cell (letters) – video-recording, handwriting by the Protagonists and Dear Cell (transcriptions) – graphic video, transcriptions of the handwritten letters
A handwritten letter is rare. It is important. It is classic. Writing by hand takes time and presumes dedication. The calligraphy is the seismograph of our inner status and identifies us. A typed letter is clearly to read. It is abstract. It is a documentation.
A letter is a vehicle of communication, its message lasts. A dedicated letter makes us feel important and our heart beats, we are happy, when we receive one from our beloved. We communicate with words. (R.H.)
Dear Cell (eyes) - video of the Protagonist’s eyes
The eye is the organ the researchers uses to observe. It is an “instrument”, which works in all individuals in the same way, but there is no same eye in the world, it belongs exclusively to us, it distinguishes and identifies us.
The eye is beautiful, it is precious. To look each other in the eyes means to come in deep touch and we don’t need words to understand each other. The eyes are the mirror of the soul, eyes cannot lie, a glimpse can petrify someone, with a single glimpse we can fall in love. (R.H.)
Dear Cell (cells) – video with confocal, multiphoton and light sheet microscopy images and videos of cells produced by Ciml and Inmed
The images, on which the researchers work, are impressive, astonishing, beautiful, surprising. We carry those images in our bodies, some of them remind on pictures of our universe. They are attractive and stimulate the phantasy. Their aesthetic is independent of their value. The image proves what happens. (R.H.)
Perception of Self and Nonself in Life – Dear Cell (ante-prima) was shown in 2019 at IMéRA Marseille, at Mandel Center Tel Aviv, at Vilnius National Museum and at A*Midex FIAC Marseille. It will be exhibited at VIDEOFORMES 2021 International Digital Arts Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and at Kaunas 2022 Contemporary Capital, Lithuania.
A publication with texts by Pascale Hurtado, Philippe Pierre, Arnulf Rohsmann and Regina Hübner is going to be released by IMéRA Marseille.
IméRA is the Institute for Advanced Study of Aix-Marseille University - AMU. As such, it is a member of Réseau Français des Instituts d'Etudes Avancées (RFIEA) [French Advanced Study Institutes Network] as well as of Réseau NETIAS [Eurias network] that includes the main European Institutes for Advanced Study.
CIML Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, is a research institute internationally renowned in its discipline which has developed an organization and practices designed to foster the creativity and risk-taking of its researchers. CIML has established an independent Scientific Advisory Board that brings together world class experts in the field of immunology. It works with 185 scientists, students and post-docs of 27 nationalities.
All models, all scales, all fields of contemporary immunology, from worm to man, from molecules to the whole organism, from physiology to pathology the CIML addresses all areas of contemporary immunology, on many models and at various scales. These include the genesis of numerous cell populations, their modes of differentiation and activation, their implication in cancers, infectious and inflammatory diseases, and the mechanisms of cell death.
Inmed Institute of Mediterranean Neurobiology is a joint research institute of INSERM and Aix-Marseille University. The main objectives of its scientific teams are the study of the development and plasticity of the brain and the pathologies of brain development.
It is composed by international researchers and professors brought together in 12 research teams qualified by our institutions and 4 emerging research teams. It is also an active center of scientific training and scientific dissemination.
INMED is a member of the EpiNext network. It is a Department Hospitalo-Universitaire (DHU), certified Federation Hospitalo-Universitaire (FHU) in 2015 by Aviesan. The FHU groups 3 INSERM institutes (INMED, INS and UNIS) and 2 Teaching Hospitals of Marseille (La Timone and Hôpital-Nord). It will coordinate basic and clinical research on the neuronal excitability defects and the epilepsies.
