This duck was created by Katie Noble, Helen Mylne, Shuyu Deng and Joshua Sammy.

To represent the Life and Death duck, we considered how the future of food might be changed. We decided to represent food and our industrialisation of nature in two parts. Food is necessary for life, and equitable access to food is an important part of the development of human civilization.

Conversely, our industrialisation of food production and unequal access to food can be detrimental to our planet and our people. In the centre, we attempt to propose a solution - discussion and policy change involving all partners can help us move towards a better future.

The duck was painted in acrylic, and was a collaborative effort between Helen, Shuyu and Joshua, with ideas adapted from Katie and her work. There are some inspirations from collage and blending between perspectives in order to bring across the complex and interconnected nature of the problems and solutions.

This duck was particularly inspired by the work of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity’s Katie Noble, who works with cultured meat. The perspective of collaboration among partners in industry is a particularly important one that we wanted to have represented.

Study with us

The Department of Biology offers a range of opportunities to study life and death in humans and other organisms, from population biology to health and disease.