Unforeseen Events

Britton collaborated with Norwegian artist Marit Tingleff in this duo, to extend the dialogue between their ceramic works, continuing an international rapport. In 2007 Tingleff and Britton were part of a much larger exhibition END, which had ben coordinated over some years between 7 British and Scandinavian artists. It was shown first in Copenhagen at the Kunstindustrimuseet and then at Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, Arendal,Norway. For Unforeseen Events, working out of sight of each other’s researches (hence the title) both were engaged with material risks in making fresh discoveries in form and surface, and an investigation of the breadth of expression achievable with a limited palette of pigment and glaze. Allusions to tableware were common to both, beyond the context of function. Tingleff’s six huge rectangular plates, e.g.170 x 92 cm, painted with slips and glaze, were wall mounted on shelves. Britton’s fifteen pieces were smaller in scale and greater in formal variety, occupying two expansive tables/plinths .The significance and innovation of this series of pots in the commitment she shows to stretching the idea of the container, was rooted in the following: Ongoing glaze experiments, fluidity, transparency, altering slips underneath. Green and yellow key colours, also a new manganese brown used with yellow, and kinds of white. New variations of formal types: jug, jar,plate, also a channeling double pot form, changed by a cone-section base. Jugs flaring and tapering, forms made by a newly defined curving slab process Plates as platforms, straight-sided ovals, deep hollows; oblong plates with oval centre fields, and exaggerated relief ornaments eg Squirl Scaling up as skill grows with new means of glazing initiated in 2007. A gallery essay by Edmund de Waal was also available online. Reviewed in Ceramic Review, issue 241,Jan/Feb 2010, later published in Norwegian. Pieces from both Britton and Tingleff from Unforeseen Events were illustrated in De Waal’s The Pot Book, Phaidon , 2011

Hvidløg og æbler mod diarré hos smågrise

The article describes the MAFFRA II project with background, research going on and demonstrations and first indications of effects. The MAFFRA II project investigates if an antibacterial plant cocktail added to pig feed can help reduce weaning diarrhoea in organic piglets, as an alternative to medical zink

Porcine foetal and neonatal CYP3A liver expression

Human cytochrome P450 3A7 (CYP3A7) and cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4) are hepatic metabolising enzymes which participates in the biotransformation of endo- and exogenous substances in foetuses and neonates respectively. These CYP3A enzymes display an inverse relationship: CYP3A7 is the dominant enzyme in the foetal liver, whereas the expression of CYP3A4 is low. After parturition there is a shift in the expression, thus CYP3A7 is down regulated, while the level of CYP3A4 gradually increases and becomes the dominant metabolising CYP3A enzyme in the adult. The minipig is increasingly being used as a model for humans in biomedical studies, because of its many similarities with the human physiology and anatomy. The aim of this study was to examine whether, as in humans, a shift is seen in the hepatic expression of a CYP3A7- like enzyme to cytochrome P450 3A29 (CYP3A29) (an orthologue to the human CYP3A4) in minipigs. This was elucidated by examining the hepatic mRNA expression of CYP3A7 and CYP3A29 in 39 foetuses and newborn Göttingen minipigs using quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Furthermore the immunochemical level of CYP3A7-LE and CYP3A29 was measured in liver microsomes using western blotting. The expression of CYP3A29 was approximately 9- fold greater in neonates compared to foetuses, and a similar difference was reflected on the immunochemical level. It was not possible to detect a significant level of foetal CYP3A7 mRNA, but immunoblotting showed a visible difference depending on age. This study demonstrates an increase in the expression of CYP3A29, the CYP3A4 orthologue in perinatal minipigs as in humans, which suggests that the minipig could be a good model when testing for human foetal toxicity towards CYP3A4 substrates

Contained/Contenu

An exhibition of ceramic and glass works by 7 international artists, in the ceramic museum Musée Ariana in Geneva, curated by Ana Quintero Perez, of the museum, and Monique Deul independent curator and founder of Taste Contemporary in Geneva. Alison Britton contributed 5 ceramic works to the exhibition