Hybrid Bodies Network - An artist-led interdisciplinary study into the effects of heart transplantation on donor families

自从1967年第一次手术成功以来，心脏移植几乎已经成为一种常规的外科手术形式。然而，尽管已经对移植过程及其医学结果进行了大量的生物科学研究，但很少有人研究移植对已故捐赠者家庭的情感和心理影响。在更广泛的层面上，器官移植意味着人们看待身体的方式发生了变化，引发了关于身体边界、身份和新的非生物亲属关系的问题。首席和联合调查员是加拿大多伦多一个长期国际跨学科研究项目的一部分，该项目旨在研究心脏移植的心理社会影响。这项研究目前的重点是更好地了解心脏捐赠者家庭的经历，其独特之处在于它汇集了医务人员、视觉艺术家、哲学家和社会科学家，从多个相互交织的角度研究移植，目的是在广泛的社会和心理背景下理解移植过程。拟议的混合机构英国网络将使参与这个现有小组的合作者与相关的英国艺术家、科学家、理论家和医疗专业人员进行对话，目的是让其中一些新合作伙伴参与为我们的项目建立一个艺术家领导的英国基地。2017年10月，我们将在伦敦举办GORA团队三位艺术家的作品展览。这些艺术家中的每一位都有丰富的作品经验，跨越了艺术和科学之间的界限。他们目前可以接触到加拿大科学伙伴的研究结果，以及那里的捐赠者家庭成员的个人经历记录。探索身份、化身、情感和亲属关系的问题，他们将继续与罗斯博士和希尔德里克博士密切合作，创作受这些现象学研究材料启发和启发的作品。展览和随之而来的半天研讨会将面向受邀的心脏捐赠者家庭、艺术家、医学科学家和其他对器官捐赠感兴趣的人。艺术家和(如有可能)现有团队的其他成员将在展览期间在场，艺术品将作为对话的焦点。虽然这些艺术品有一个共同的起点，但三位艺术家各自将创作一件单独的作品。他们将与策展人汉娜·雷德勒(Hannah Redler)联系，以确保展出作品之间的关系牢固，展览具有凝聚力，允许艺术品有空间根据反馈进行变异和改变。2018年3月，我们将在南安普顿大学举办为期两天的研讨会，将该小组的现有成员与在初始展览上招募的新成员聚集在一起，通过小组工作、有组织的跨学科问答会议、小组讨论和来自不同学科立场的演讲等活动，更深入地交流经验、想法和做法。这一系列活动将使我们能够与英国的跨学科研究人员和实践者分享我们现有的创新的跨学科工作方法，以及我们对心脏移植的一些破坏性和令人不安的情感方面的见解。通过视觉和媒体艺术，我们正在进行的研究将以一种新颖的方式探索器官移植的复杂性。以发展中的艺术品为焦点，我们的目标是将艺术、生物科学和人文科学的新研究纠缠在一起，而不是特权任何一个话语。扩大我们现有合作的范围，以促进在两个不同文化背景(加拿大/英国)工作的研究人员之间的交流，将在两国带来更丰富的新理解、知识翻译和外联的替代途径。

Since the first successful operation in 1967, heart transplantation has become an almost routine form of surgery. Yet whilst significant bio-scientific research has been conducted into the procedure and its medical outcomes, there has been very little research into the emotional and psychological impact of transplantation on the families of deceased donors. On a broader level, organ transplantation signifies a shift in the way the body is viewed, raising questions around bodily boundaries, identity, and new non-biological kinship relationships. The Principal and Co-Investigators are part of a long term international, interdisciplinary research project based in Toronto, Canada looking at the psycho-social effects of heart transplantation. The study, which is currently focused on better understanding the experience of heart donor families, is unique in that it brings together medics, 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 proposed Hybrid Bodies UK network will bring collaborators involved in this existing group into dialogue with relevant UK-based artists, scientists, theorists and medical professionals with the aim of involving some of these new partners in establishing an artist-led UK base for our project. In October 2017 we will hold a work in progress exhibition in London of artworks made by the three artists in the GOLA team. Each of these artists has extensive experience of making work that traverses the boundaries between art and science. They currently have access to the research findings of the scientific partners in Canada and to records of the personal experiences of donor family members there. Exploring issues of identity, embodiment, affect and kinship, they will continue to work closely with Dr. Ross and Dr. Shildrick to create work informed and inspired by this phenomenological research material. The exhibition and an accompanying half-day symposium will be for an invited audience of heart donor families, artists, medical scientists, and others with an interest in organ donation. The artists and (where possible) other members of the existing team will be present for the duration of the exhibition, where the artworks will act as a focal point for dialogue. While the artworks share a common starting point, each of the three artists will produce a separate work. They will liaise with Curator, Hannah Redler to ensure that relationships between the exhibited works are strong and the exhibition is cohesive, allowing space for the artworks to mutate and change in response to feedback. In March 2018 we will hold a two-day workshop at University of Southampton that brings together existing members of the group with new members recruited at the initial exhibition for a more in-depth practical exchange of experience, ideas and practices facilitated through activities such as small group work, structured interdisciplinary Q&A sessions, panel discussions and presentations from different disciplinary standpoints. This program of events will enable us to share both our existing innovative interdisciplinary working methods and our insight into some of the disruptive and emotionally disturbing aspects of heart transplantation with interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners in the UK. Channeled through visual and media arts, our ongoing research will explore the complexities of organ transplantation in a novel way. Using artworks in development as a focal point, we aim to entangle new research from the arts, biosciences and humanities without privileging any one discourse. Broadening the reach of our existing collaboration to facilitate exchange between researchers working in two different cultural contexts (Canada/UK) will lead to richer alternative avenues for new understandings, knowledge translation and outreach in both countries.