Each year about 5,000 people see the collections of the BDA Dental Museum. Some people are members of the dental profession; many are not. However everybody has their own experiences relating to teeth - their first teeth coming through, losing milk teeth and the visit of the tooth fairy, trips to the dentist, looking after false teeth for elderly relatives in hospital. The objects in the museum’s collection can inform us about dentistry in the past but they also stimulate our own memories. London based ceramic artist Judy DiBiase has been working with the museum to captures visitor’s different reactions to the museum’s collections and the memories the objects provoke. These have then provided part of the inspiration for Judy’s own response, in ceramics, to the museum’s collection which can be seen on show in the museum and around the BDA.

Judy DiBiase

Objects make us think. We think of the time and place when they were used, their purpose and method of use. They evoke memory, acting as a catalyst for a host of experiences that are revived by interaction.

The BDA Dental Museum houses a fantastic and fascinating array of objects that are connected to my memories. My father, David DiBiase was a leading orthodontist; I grew up surrounded by images of teeth. Plaster impressions in green boxes, diagrams and x-rays of displaced incisors and canines. I remember Dad dictating letters and storing dental notes in brown files. Looking at the museum collection my memories become heightened and vivid.

My practice is concerned with how memories can be drawn out by objects. Memories layer to inform an emotional understanding of ourselves and our environment. I have worked with the Museum collection, recording people’s reactions to objects which are connected by the observer to personal incidents and events. My work is exhibited alongside the collections, so taking it out of a traditional art gallery setting.

History can be seen in the significant macro events with which we are all familiar from school. However those events were frequently remote from those they affected. I am fascinated by the routine objects which were, and are, familiar to so many of us, to which we can directly relate and which provoke direct personal memories. Working with the tools of the dental trade, toothbrushes and teeth, seeing and hearing people’s reactions to them enhances the sense of these objects being a microcosm of social history. Each object is embedded in the technology and social conditioning of its time but is brought to life by the individual reaction of the observer. 

The connection between the act of making and dentistry has proved to be irresistible. My work is directly linked to the collection through my own use of porcelain and to my own memories through my use of my father’s dental instruments to create and record.

The pieces of work are all derived from drawings of the museum collection as well as drawings inspired by people’s stories. The drawing itself acts as a remembrance as it is re-worked and rubbed out leaving a trace on the paper. The drawings are then translated onto clay pieces, some require interaction and “extraction” to be fully experienced. Use of text is an important element of my work. The text is overheard conversations at the museum, as well as the written memories of visitors’ experiences of the dentist and dentistry. One piece uses work produced by school children during a visit to the museum.

The ceramic works exhibited alongside the collection are a reaction to and a memory of the experience of the museum.

Judy is the course leader for the Foundation Diploma In Art and Design at Kingston College and is currently undertaking an MA in Contemporary Craft Practice at UCA Farnham. Her father was David Dibiase.

David Domenic DiBiase 1935-2001

David studied dentistry at King’s College Hospital graduating with honours in 1959. Following national service in the RAF (1961-63) he undertook further training to specialize in orthodontics during which time he was awarded the prestigious Chapman Prize for his research.

He was appointed consultant orthodontist at Southend General Hospital in 1971 where he was also dental tutor from 1972 to 1976. In 1989 he relinquished some sessions at Southend to join the teaching staff at the Royal London Hospital where he proved to be an outstanding teacher and mentor for both postgraduate and undergraduate students.

He was known as a great clinician, developing ideas and techniques such as the Southend Clasp, (with Arthur Levis) a retention component for use with removable orthodontic appliances.

Another of his great passions was his work with patients born with clefts of the lip and palate providing a comprehensive service at five maternity units in Essex and the cleft centre at St Andrews Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford.
He also undertook extensive research in this field; he had an impressive list of publications and was in constant demand as a lecturer nationally and internationally.

David played a pivotal role in uniting the five separate orthodontic societies in the UK to form, the British Orthodontic Society (BOS). This process took nearly 10 years of hard work to achieve and a great deal of diplomacy. Many say without him there would be no united society. He was the first chairman the newly formed BOS from 1994 till 1996. He was then elected to the General Dental Council in June 1996 with the highest number of votes cast. He sadly had to resign in 2000 due to ill health.

During his time as a consultant David was always very involved with the BDA, first as secretary to the Essex branch in the 1970s, as chairman of the Southend section and as president of the Essex branch in 1989. He was referee and advisor for orthodontics for the British Dental Journal from 1980 to 2000. He was awarded the Clifford Ballard Medal for outstanding services to orthodontics and made a life member of the BOS in 2001. David had an interest in art which has passed to his daughter Judy.