Heart to Heart is a body of work I created for my NCAD degree show inspired by the heart transplant I had over 10 years ago. The work explores the experience of receiving unsolicited and uneducated comments over my post transplant life and how this has affected my identity growing up with a disability. Comments I have received ranged from “Has your personality changed” to “Do you have a pig's heart”. This project explores why the heart has been viewed as and to a certain extent still is seen as the emotional organ in the body and the medical progress throughout history that have transformed this opinion. This is done while also exploring my feelings of introspection and isolation towards the surgery. My project represents the medical advancements of the heart chronologically displaying more complex renditions as the project goes on i.e. starting with the sacred heart and ending with anatomically correct illustrations. To parallel the chronological advancement I use higher quality materials as the work develops starting with plastic filament, using copper in the intermediate stages and culminating with silver.
