This artwork, the largest of the three, references the passion of fundamental growth in all forms. Tens of thousands of genes find their own voice in a chorus of life and death genesis and apoptosis in a continuous song of regeneration. In the background of the work there are text references to the X and Y chromosomes on the right and to inherited genetic disorders on the left. The cursive script is an extract from, “A Process in the Weather of the Heart,” a poem by Dylan Thomas.

Seeds of Life: About the Project

Seeds of Life is the collective title for this series of digital prints commissioned for the lobby of the Life Science and Engineering building at Boston University. The three artworks in this project take the subject of evolution as their theme and inspiration. Technical innovation is at the heart of all scientific study today. The sequencing of the human genome is a good example of this. Recent progress in this field would have been impossible without the computer which is one of the reasons for choosing a digital methodology for making these artworks. The study of the human genome is at the heart of the project. To celebrate the new building the university decided to commission O'Donnell to make three site-specific artworks for the lobby.

The ten floor Life Science and Engineering building at Boston University is 187,000 gross square feet and was completed in 2005. It is located at 24 Cummington Street, Boston, between Cummington Street and the Massachusetts Turnpike. The building houses a group of scientific disciplines created to increase the university's capacity for interdisciplinary research and is one of the unique few in the country to arrange research according to research interests, rather than department affiliation. It has been the intention to have biologists, chemists, biomedical engineers, and bioinformatics researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates working side-by-side on investigations in genomics, proteomics, systems biology, and other areas of research that will shape science during the 21st century. To celebrate the new building the university commissioned Hugh O'Donnell to make these three site-specific artworks which are installed in the front lobby of the building.