Paper short abstract:

In artwork 'The Body is a Big Place' a dialogue is staged between 'performing' organs and the performing bodies of members of an organ transplant community. This paper explores material, visceral and metaphoric strategies used in the project to present 'un-representable' aspects of transplantation.

Paper long abstract:

'The Body is a Big Place' is a large-scale, immersive installation developed by artists Helen Pynor and Peta Clancy in collaboration with scientists, clinicians and sound artist Gail Priest. The work explores organ transplantation and the ambiguous thresholds between life and death, revealing death as an extended durational process rather than an event that occurs in a single moment in time. The work comprises a 5-channel video projection, fully functioning bio-sculptural heart perfusion device, soundscape, and single channel video.

'The Body is a Big Place' re-enacted certain defining aspects of the human heart transplant process. During live performances undertaken in the gallery space, the heart perfusion device was used to reanimate to a beating state a pair of fresh pig hearts obtained from an abattoir. Rather than sensationalising these performative events, the artists sought to encourage empathic responses from viewers, activating the bodies of viewers by appealing to their somatic senses and fostering their identification with the hearts they were watching. This opened up the possibility of a deeper awareness and connection with viewers' own interiors.

The work's realisation depended on engagement with an organ transplant community in Melbourne who were performers in the work's underwater video sequences. These were individuals who have received, donated, or stood closely by loved ones as they received or posthumously donated human organs. The bodies and actions of performers within the aqueous performance space generated a series of metaphors that sought to indirectly describe aspects of the transplant experience.