Tissue dye on Roman law (carmine, indigo and picric acid on Codex Theodosianus, 1665 edition).

For two thousand years, ‘immunity’ was exclusively a legal and political concept. In the winter of 1882, zoologist Elie Metchnikoff pushed a citrus thorn under the skin of a starfish larva and referred to the accumulation of cells around the thorn as an ‘immune defence’. This introduced an entirely new medical theory that understood the body as being at war with its surroundings.

In this series of paintings, Goldin+Senneby have used the same tissue dyes that Metchnikoff used to stain the transparent starfish and applied them to the word ‘immunitas’ as it was first used in Roman legal texts. The titles of the individual works include a translation of how the concept of immunity is used on that particular page of the Codex Theodosianus.

Exhibited: Insurgency of Life, Nome, Berlin, 2021https://nomegallery.com/exhibitions/insurgency-of-life/

Sick Architecture, CIVA, Brussels, 2022https://civa.brussels/en/exhibitions-events/expo-sick-architecture

Flare-Up, Accelerator, Stockholm, 2025 https://acceleratorsu.art/en/utstallning/flare-up-goldinsenneby