The Dendron Project is making a people’s immunology for pandemic times.
Through text, art, research and collaboration, The Dendron Project makes new and true stories about how we deal with danger, know ourselves and seek to heal.
The centerpiece of The Dendron Project is a biography of the dendritic cell, which moves through the body with nonlinear, exploratory motion, finding the unknown and carrying it into community to start immune responses.
The book tells the story of the cell through an dendritically nonlinear exploration of the lives of three scientists whose work led to the cell’s discovery. The final section of the book takes place in a post-patriarchal present where cells and people speak their truths. The People’s Immunology Committee and the interactive invitations from the Dendron Project Lab are creating this present.
Emily Bass is an author, historian, journalist, artist, and AIDS activist. Her first book, To End a Plague, a history of transnational AIDS activism, was nominated for the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize for best English language book on foreign affairs. Her writing has appeared in n+1, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Lancet and ‘zines published by the What Would an HIV Doula Do collective, of which she is a member. She is a Creative Capital awardee, a Culture Push Associated Artist, and the recipient of fellowships from NYSCA/NYFA (Nonfiction) and the Center for New Jewish Culture for her current work. Bass has also received a Fulbright Scholarship (journalism) and the Martin Duberman Visiting Research Fellowship at the New York Public Library. Bass lives and makes immune responses in Brooklyn, New York.