UP Projects is curating and producing a new commission with University College London (UCL) Public Art, which will be a permanent memorial celebrating the life and achievements of Anita Harding (1952 – 1995), the first female professor of Clinical Neurology in the UK at UCL.
Anita Harding’s major discoveries included the first identification of a mitochondrial DNA mutation in human disease, alongside Ian Holt and John Morgan-Hughes. She spearheaded the first neurogenetics research group in the UK at the UCL Insitute of Neurology, while she was still a lecturer and was only weeks away from taking up the post of head of the Clinical Neurology department in Queens Square when she died of colon cancer, aged 42 years old.
The new commission will be located at 256 Grays Inn Road as part of UCL’s new purpose-built centre for pre-clinical neuroscience due to open in 2026. The new facility will be home to three partners: the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, the UK Dementia Research Institute hub and the UCLH National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. Fly throughs of the building design can be seen here.
Valda Jackson chosen to create the Anita Harding Memorial
Valda Jackson was selected for her proposal from the shortlisted artists by a panel of UCL staff and academics and artists, including Institute Director Professor Mike Hanna; Professor Helene Plun-Favreau; Professor Gabriel Lignani; Head of Public Art, Sam Wilkinson; public artist at Grays Inn Road, Annie Cattrell and Emma Underhill, Founder & Artistic Director, at UP Projects.
