Hybrid Bodies: the Heart Project.
This is a multicomponent output comprising artwork exhibitions, a co-authored published article, and a single-authored book chapter. Hybrid Bodies: The Heart Project brings together medical practitioners, visual artists, a philosopher and social scientists to study transplantation from multiple, interwoven perspectives with the aim of understanding the procedure within a broad social and psychological context. The international research meetings were integrated with exhibitions and contributed to published outputs. See Portfolio Booklet for documentation of research dimensions.
- Submitting institution
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The University of Westminster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- qqw60
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
- First exhibition - Heart of the Matter in Hybrid Bodies, Phi Centre, Montreal, January 23–March 15, 2014, followed by new works in related exhibition venues to 2019. Further details in portfolio.
- Brief description of type
- Other: Multicomponent
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- January
- Year
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- In 2017, Wright was awarded an AHRC Research Network grant to carry out an artist-led interdisciplinary study into the effects of heart transplantation on donors’ families. The network grant brought the project to the UK for the first time, developing a wider interdisciplinary network and enabling further interdisciplinary insights into the effects of heart transplantation for recipients and donor families. Key questions asked include: How might art act as a bridge between the experience of heart-donor families and medical professionals? What forms and methods of artistic practice are most appropriate in this context? What are the implications of considering organ transplant as a form of intercorporeality?
Through exhibitions and other activities, the project shows that as well as blurring the boundaries between self and other, organ transplantation has deep implications for our understanding of the relation between death and “staying alive”. Recipients of donor organs often find the experience of surviving an otherwise certain death is fraught with complex emotions about the relationship between the self and the now dead other, while donor families understandably wish to see the donor living on in another. Through art, Wright and collaborators found that they could tackle these emotive aspects of transplantation that resist verbal or textual communication in new and accessible ways. Comparison between Canada and UK transplant regulations led to new insights on future policy.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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