You are walking down the street and you come across a cigarette butt, a chewing gum or a woman's hair. You wonder who has passed through there and what the story behind that person is like and not only that but you also wonder what the person is like that hides behind any of those objects. Imagine for a moment that you can portray people who are no longer there, who passed by in a timely manner near you and who you never met but who curiously inspired you by the stage they occupied or simply because you ran into some trace of them at one point special. It would be something mysterious, strange and above all inspiring. This is the challenge set by the artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg who had the magnificent idea of portraying people she never knew by taking samples of DNA present in cigarette butts and gum.
Once this artist takes the samples in a laboratory, she analyzes the simple nucleotide polymorphisms, neither more nor less than variations of DNA sequences, to later transfer the data to a computer program that is capable of translating that information into real physical features: From gender, race, or eye color. The thing does not end there because then our protagonism meticulously retouches each of the images based on the information collected and prints them with a 3D printer. All this has given rise to a series of works called Stranger Visions o Visions of strangers. Here you have a sample of his fantastic work, but fortunately in the future there will be more, as he recognizes that the results are not 100% accurate with the original people but that in the future he intends to be.
