On 13 July, a 25-metre banner was hung from the ceiling of the Wellcome Building, descending through the stairwell, past five floors, to the ground floor. Visitors to each floor can see the banner cascading down past the stairs, its kaleidoscopic images shimmering on the fibreglass fabric.

The initial impression of order and symmetry, suggested by the almost childlike simplicity of the images and their arrangement in circular reflecting patterns, is deceptive. "At first it is easy to be seduced by the candy colours and pacifying patterns," says Aya Ben Ron. "But there is a darker side."

A closer look at the individual images reveals that each displays symptoms of disease and deformity. Babies arms are twisted by rickets, hands are bent out of shape, the splintered bone of a broken leg juts from the flesh. A tumour grows from a woman’s cheek, and a child's lower body is engulfed by an enlarged thyroid gland. Everywhere healthy, natural growth has been arrested, broken or transformed into something malignant.

Alongside the depictions of illness and physical malfunction on the banner are attempts to cure the abnormalities. Surgeons operate on a patient's brain. Healing hands touch a face or place a dressing over infected eyes. Diseased limbs are amputated and tumours cut out, "as if cutting the damage out will bring normality back," says Aya.

Aya created the banner, entitled 'Hanging', during her six-month residency at the Wellcome Trust, which she first took up in March 2001. Set up to encourage innovative interplay between science and art – with the ultimate aim of interesting the public in biomedicine – the Artist-in-Residence Programme allows artists easy access to Wellcome Trust resources. The Trust's extensive collections of historical and scientific material, and the wide range of expertise among its staff can provide inspiration and context for new artwork.

'Hanging' portrays the movement and ceaseless transformation of life from birth on the ground floor, up to death on the fifth floor level, symbolised by an anaesthetic machine. "It describes a pathway through life where everything went wrong from the beginning," explains Aya. "We try to create normal lives for ourselves, to cut out disease and abnormalities. But what is normal? The banner looks normal and pleasant to the eye, but in fact it is malignant: the overall appearance of harmony created by the patterns is disrupted by the grotesque and painful nature of the details. I use this aesthetic tension between equilibrium and disorder to describe sickness and crisis."

The images used in 'Hanging' are based on medical textbook illustrations, which serve a practical, technical purpose, to instruct about illness and medical procedures. "I recreate the images digitally on the computer and use them to create the patterns," explains Aya. "The patterns were printed on fibreglass fabric, which gives the banner its shiny effect."

The accurate scientific information has been taken out of its original context, dissected and reassembled into playful juxtapositions. "As part of a huge, decorative ornament, these once objective, didactic resources now function as actors in a process of development and transformation, triggering a subjective, emotional response in the viewer," says Aya. "But I'm afraid the only way to see the whole piece is to climb all the way up the stairwell, past all five floors. This generates the complete experience of the piece."

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