Exhibition dates
1 July - 24 September 2023
Exhibition location
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre
1 Powerhouse Road, Casula New South Wales 2170
Exhibition details
Paradoxes of Paradise is an exhibition curated by Creative Hybrids Lab (CHL), an international collective of artists who are also organ transplant recipients critically engaging with their lived experience of chronic illness and transplantation.
Organ Transplantation, also known as the Gift of Life and a Second Chance of Life, frequently has an aura of paradisaical mystique surrounding it. With good reason: transplantation is truly transformational. Yet there is much more to transplantation than what is conveyed by mass media and medical professionals.
CHL seeks through a variety of mediums to hold space for and elevate the voices of the vulnerable. Sometimes a transformation can be so overpowering that one can never ‘return to normal.’
We live within the context of a culture which perpetuates gaps between stories told about illness and disability, and actual lived experience. Our culture wants us to say that our transplants have returned us to normal life, but the reality is different. Transplant recipients depend on toxic medication to stay alive, and exist permanently immunosuppressed, which inevitably takes a physical and mental health toll.
Paradoxes of Paradise features works exploring the various paradoxes of the paradise that is transplantation, created and curated by CHL members: Andrea Barrett (UK), Bianca Willoughby (AUS), Dominic Quagliozzi (USA), Dylan Mortimer (USA) and Tereza Crvenkovic (AUS). Touching on environmental sustainability, facets of medical trauma, spiritual influences, and more, it is a show not to be missed for those with an open mind, and the curiosity to step into the mindscape of organ recipients.
