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The Body is a Big Place
Peta Clancy,Helen Pynor
2012
transplantation, death, biology, bio-art, installation, sculpture, heart, organs, live
‘The Body is a Big Place’ explores organ transplantation and the ambiguous thresholds between life and death, revealing the process of death as an extended durational moment, rather than an event that occurs in a single moment in time. This bio-art work is a large-scale immersive installation comprising a 5-channel video projection, a fully functioning bio-sculptural heart perfusion system, an undulating aqueous soundscape, and a single channel video work. ‘The Body is a Big Place’ re-enacted certain defining aspects of the human heart transplant process. The heart perfusion device was used to reanimate to a beating state a pair of fresh pig hearts in 2 performances staged during the exhibition. 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.