A sense of place. Narratives of memory and identity as told through image and place

Drawing upon participatory artistic practices and using the capacity of documentary photography and moving image both to construct and unsettle official discourses, I advance through my practice a collective exploration of memory and identity as embedded in designated places, and in turn make visible the memories of place. I am looking particularly at the identity of place in the post-Soviet context to explore notions of belonging, identity and migration. The research is structured around two case studies, which provide an in-depth analysis of two different methodological approaches to the study of a place, each situated in specified locations. The first case study, Out of Place, examines the phenomenon of national identity as found within Baltic Russian emigrants now living in the UK. Focusing on a network of Russian-speaking emigrants from Latvia, I establish an audio-visual archive of the objects and memorabilia brought with the emigrants as they move from Latvia to the UK. Ten participants were invited to contribute to the project by telling a story about the object of their own selection. The case study aims to look at how the identity with a place can be constructed through people’s experience, and how place manifests itself through the objects and artefacts. The second case study, The Landscapes of Nizny Novgorod produced in collaboration with sociologist Olga Chernyavskaya, emerged out of the question of how identity of/with place can be constructed through representation of landscape. The case study is aimed at exploring the identity of Nizhny Novgorod (Russia), through tracing the distinctive features of its eight districts. Eight walks were organised, each one dedicated to a particular district. These walks were organised as field studies, though they carried elements of the Situationists’ dérives, they were designed to document the city and gather ‘the field data’, but also create a situation where new and unintended encounters could take place. The contribution this MPhil seeks to make is situated in both methodological and artistic fields, in a reconsideration of the underlying principles and artistic practices in representing and constructing the identity of/with a place. The use of oral history as a method in the Out of Place case study allowed me to create an identity of a place based on plurality and multiplicity. In the Landscapes of Nizhny Novgorod the identity of a place was constructed through the means of photography, by giving voice to those parts of the city that are usually considered to be too banal or not interesting enough to be photographed

Mobility of lysozyme in poly(L-lysine)/hyaluronic acid multilayer films

The spatial and temporal control over presentation of protein-based biomolecules such as growth factors and hormones is crucial for in vitro applications to mimic the complex in vivo environment. We investigated the interaction of a model protein lysozyme (Lys) with poly(L-lysine)/hyaluronic acid (PLL/HA) multilayer films. We focused on Lys diffusion as well as adsorption and retention within the film as a function of the film deposition conditions and post-treatment. Additionally, an effect of Lys concentration on its mobility was probed. A combination of confocal fluorescence microscopy, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, and microfluidics was employed for this investigation. Our main finding is that adsorption of PLL and HA after protein loading induces acceleration and reduction of Lys mobility, respectively. These results suggest that a charge balance in the film to a high extent governs the protein–film interaction. We believe that control over protein mobility is a key to reach the full potential of the PLL/HA films as reservoirs for biomolecules depending on the application demand

Б1.В.ДВ Прикладная физическая культура 2017

The spherical vaterite CaCO₃ microcrystals are nowadays widely used as sacrificial templates for fabrication of various microcarriers made of biopolymers (e.g., proteins, nucleic acids, enzymes) due to porous structure and mild template elimination conditions. Here, we demonstrated for the first time that polymer microcarriers with tuned internal nanoarchitecture can be designed by employing the CaCO₃ crystals of controlled porosity. The layer-by-layer deposition has been utilized to assemble shell-like (hollow) and matrix-like (filled) polymer capsules due to restricted and free polymer diffusion through the crystal pores, respectively. The crystal pore size in the range of few tens of nanometers can be adjusted without any additives by variation of the crystal preparation temperature in the range 7–45 °C. The temperature-mediated growth mechanism is explained by the Ostwald ripening of nanocrystallites forming the crystal secondary structure. Various techniques including SEM, AFM, CLSM, Raman microscopy, nitrogen adsorption–desorption, and XRD have been employed for crystal and microcapsule analysis. A three-dimensional model is introduced to describe the crystal internal structure and predict the pore cutoff and available surface for the pore diffusing molecules. Inherent biocompatibility of CaCO₃ and a possibility to scale the porosity in the size range of typical biomacromolecules make the CaCO₃ crystals extremely attractive tools for template assisted designing tailor-made biopolymer-based architectures in 2D to 3D targeted at drug delivery and other bioapplications