bodily metaphors of various kinds
Video installation (5.55 min), 2023
bodily metaphors of various kinds is a video installation by visual artist Liza Wolters that focuses on the many layers involved in the process of organ transplantation. During this years’ Summer School of the Science Gallery, the lively and profound conversations and sharings gave space to address the complexity and importance of transplantation. Every layer could exist in relation to each other: the personal, the ethics, the formal procedures, the treatments, the science, the research, the developments within modern technology, and a lot in between. The insightful days raised many questions, feelings and thought processes on how to relate to a body, as well as where it begins and ends. What it means to be sick, and to become unsick.
In the work, Wolters consciously scans several layers that are part of the organ transplantation process. Each layer is treated not only equally, but also as tissue, intertwined with each other. By treating body material as soft architecture, it’s not always clear where one embodiment starts and one ends, and the line between the human and the architectural, the non-human, and the body fades. As a red thread, the sewing of flower petals, symbolising the fragility of the human body, is a recurring motif throughout the installation.
Cinematography – Rik Komáromi
Edit – Rik Komáromi and Liza Wolters
With great thanks to Science Gallery Rotterdam, Fred Balvert, Tess de Ruiter and Rawad Baaklini and all the fellows of the summer school on Organ Transplantation Saja Amro, Polina Balvert, Alcide Breaux, Isabella Clayton, Sandu Cojocari, (the sewing hands of) Helena Daher Gomes, Moosje M Goosen, Meryem al Fatly, Julia de Heide, Pragya Jain (PJ), Başak Kırıcı, Emily Liang, Kaja Majoor, Saran Munnichs, Claudia Oliveira, Elizabeth Racicot, Laura Rodrigues, Gizem Sivrikaya, Roosje Verschoor, Marleine van der Werf, and all the invited guests Erasmus MC Rotterdam Kees Nijs, Roeland de Wilde and everyone else who helped with filming.
all footage was filmed on Thursday, Sept. 21, at Erasmus MC Rotterdam.
