What is the Genomic Cross Stitch Project?

The Genomic Cross Stitch Project is an art project to represent a genome using cross stitch. It is a collaboration, where participants are given cross stitch “kits” to complete. The finished kits will be joined together to form a visual representation of the genome of the bacteria Nasuia deltocephalinicola (found in the digestive tract of leaf hoppers).

Why Cross Stitch?

DNA and genomic information are usually represented as a string of the letters ACGT (and N for “unknown”) to represent individual nucleotides. Because cross stitch is essentially single points of colour, it is relatively straightforward to represent strings and blocks of colour on the material. A bit like pixels on a computer screen.
Cross stitch (and most needlework) also lends itself to “stitching circles”, where people can come together and chat while working on something. This project builds on that concept, in that participants are all working towards completing one single piece.

Why not stitch the Human Genome?

The human genome is BIG! It’s approximately 3,200,000,000 nucleotides in length. This project represents each nucleotide as a 4×4 block of stitches… so that would be about 51,200,000,000 stitches in total. Stitching at 5 stitches/minute, it would take about 19,500 years worth of stitching (non-stop, all day, every day) to complete!
In comparison, N. deltocephalinicola is the smallest non-virus genome discovered, at about 112,000 nucleotides in length (and 1,760,000 stitches using 4×4 blocks). Stitching at 5 stitches/minute, that’s about 245 days worth of stitching… Much more achievable in a lifetime!

How do I Participate?

Sign up over at the participate page and the artist (Darren Cullerne) will be in touch soon.