Knowing

Sean Caulfield produced The Anatomy Table as part of the transdisciplinary project <ImmuneNations>, which focused on researching the diverse cultural ideas around the safety and efficacy of vaccines. This series of prints combines two layers of images. The first consists of illustrations by the renowned 16th-century anatomist Andreas Vesalius, whose work you can explore in the section on Seeing. The title of the work and presentation of the central figure lying flat and exposed further recall the careful dissections Vesalius is known for performing in anatomy theaters. The second layer comprises Caulfield’s own fantastical drawings inspired by scientific descriptions of viruses. By juxtaposing these two sources and uniting them visually, Caulfield invites us to consider the problematic divide between scientific/objective/empirical and cultural/emotional/artistic representations of the body.

The human body is a central focus of much of Ingrid Bachmann’s work. In Pelt, she raises questions about the relationship of our bodies to technology. Originally one of six animal-like kinetic sculptures, this work seeks to humanize technology through rhythmic inhalations and exhalations. Its organic, almost sentient movements encourage us to consider where our bodies end and where technology begins—a question not only relevant in the medical sciences, where implants, transplants, prostheses, and other procedures can permanently alter our bodies—but also in day-to-day life as we interact with technologies that can at once connect and alienate us from one another.

The pages of this book are laser cut with two images of a human heart, inspired by Andrew Carnie’s research as part of Hybrid Bodies, a transdisciplinary team investigating the social and psychological dimensions of heart transplantation in Canada. Carnie intends for the image to be legible as a human heart, but also allow for the viewer to question what might be missing, referencing the anonymity that accompanies organ transplants. The pages are stitched along the side to recall the ways that new organs are stitched into a recipient’s body.  

Chromotherapy, which involves directing colored light at afflicted areas of the human body to cure disease, has roots in ancient Egypt and China. The practice was introduced in the United States in the 19th century as an alternative to Western medicine’s often aggressive and invasive methods. After a surgical procedure, and influenced by his close attention to color in his photography practice, Nagatani was drawn to chromotherapy treatment and pursued extensive research to learn more. In this work, he engages the ongoing debates between the supposedly objective science of Western medicine and the pseudoscience surrounding alternative healing practices such as chromotherapy.

Holland Houdek suggests that medical devices and surgical tools carry conflicting messages: they can provoke fear and terror, hope for healing, and a “macabre fascination” about how they would feel when used on a living body. These sculptural pieces are also meant to elicit bodily responses in viewers and make them aware of their corporeality. Both evocative of biomedical enhancements and prostheses—Nelumbo Mastoplasty, for instance, incorporates a silicone breast implant—the works encourage viewers to visualize the implants and imagine that the correlating anatomies (heart, veins, breasts) were missing in their own bodies. For Houdek, this work also blurs past and present, existing “in the future by conceptualizing a new type of anatomy and ways to mend the body, while also gesturing to the historical genre of memento mori”–objects that serve as reminders of mortality and death, such as skulls.  

Contributing to Junctures of a Haphazard Kind prompted textile artist and University of Kansas professor Mary Anne Jordan to muse on “the fragility of life yet the amazing resiliency of our bodies to regenerate and heal…especially since this work was done during the precarious and uncertain time of a pandemic.” In these pieces, she explores metaphorical links between textiles and the body. In Open Heart, Jordan considers clothing not as a cover or protector, but rather as a disguise for the body. She deliberately chose transparent fabric to illustrate how close our flesh, blood, and organs are to the outside world. Here, clothing, imagined skin, and organs are all criss-crossed with thread and veins—words that themselves have strong links to lineage, family, and physical corporeality.

In Plea, she relates the skilled handwork required to create domestic textiles like doilies, lace, and quilts to the complex structures of the body and dexterity required to perform surgeries; here, stitches function as sutures to repair and connect.

After working on Junctures of a Haphazard Kind, Naznin Amiri Meers reflected that she felt like she’d been entrusted with a gift. She states that the process of collaboration prompted her to reflect on care, compassion, connection, and the responsibility we should all feel toward one another—sentiments that felt particularly timely in the early spring, during the first phases of lockdowns and social distancing caused by Covid-19.

Participating in Junctures of a Haphazard Kind prompted Sydney Jane Brooke Campbell Maybrier Pursel to conduct research about organ transplantation and donation, a topic about which she had little prior knowledge. Her work references the most surprising fact she learned as part of her research: that over 80% of people on transplant lists are waiting for kidneys, more than for any other organ. Since Pursel often aims to educate viewers on complex social problems, she also repurposed a functional game of Operation, transforming Carnie’s works into an interactive experience that teaches players about organ donation.

Expanded media artist Juan José Castaño-Marquez was surprised by the fear he felt when faced with modifying another artist’s work, and he spent the first six weeks thinking about issues of organ transplantation and human connection abstractly, without translating his concepts into artwork. Once he overcame this paralysis, however, the process caused him to think deeply about organ donation—and the many ways humans are connected to one another. An artist who regularly explores hybridity, gender, and performance in Catholic rituals, Castaño-Márquez draws fascinating connections between organ transplantation and asks whether traces of identity, knowledge, and existence can transcend death.