Www.mindovermatterproject.co.uk EXHIBITION: 12-23 OCT 2011 SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL 380 OLD STREET...

www.mindovermatterproject.co.uk

EXHIBITION: 12-23 OCT 2011

SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL380 OLD STREETLONDON, EC1V 9LT

MIND OVER MATTERBRONWYN PARRY ANIA DABROWSKA

Mon–Fri: 10 am – 6 pmSat–Sun: 12 – 6 pmFree entry

Tube: Old Street, Liverpool StBuses: 26, 35, 47, 48, 55, 67, 78, 135, 149, 242, 243


A revolutionary science and art exhibition featuring portraits of brain donors, whose identities are revealed for the first time, will go on display in Shoreditch Town Hall, London, 12 -23 October. By demystifying what happens behind the doors of brain bank laboratories, Mind Over Matter draws back the veil of secrecy surrounding the practice of organ donation in celebration of those who elect to donate their brains after death for the purposes of neuroscientific research.



Mind Over Matter is a project about dementia and the contribution that a unique cadre of twelve brain donors, aged between 84 and over a 101, will make towards finding a cure for this devastating disease in the 21st century.

Understanding the scientific basis of this disease entails undertaking research on human brain tissue drawn from people who were affected by dementia as well as those with no signs of dementia at the time of death. All of this is dependent on the selfless generosity and courage of individuals who have elected to donate their brains after death.



Artist Ania Dabrowska, collaborating with Dr Bronwyn Parry from Queen Mary, University of London, met with some of Britain’s oldest prospective brain donors who agreed to be photographed and interviewed about their lives and involvement in brain research.

For these donors, death proves not to be the end of life for their brains, but rather a mere stopping off point in a journey that sees them travel out and beyond their bodily lives to the global research laboratories of the future.



At a time when the practice of retaining body parts for medical research has been rendered repugnant through past cases of unethical practice and adverse media attention, Mind Over Matter seeks to rehabilitate the practice of body donation in the public imagination.



For the exhibition, Dabrowska interweaves photographic portraits, appropriated archival photographs, projections and sound narratives from the twelve donors, alongside scientific artifacts and medical imagery, to present a layered contemplation about the nature of memory loss and to trace the new lives that the brains take on after the donor’s death. Drawing on themes of memory, death, the transience of the body and ageing, the artist uses the labyrinth-like exhibition site to evoke a phenomenological experience of what it might feel like to lose one’s memory.



The authors explore some of the ethical, psychological, religious and social implications behind the process of donation, for both the donors and their families, to get a better understanding of how people reach the decision to donate. As a visual representation of organ donors is unprecedented in the UK, Mind Over Matter project challenges the historical relationship between anonymity, objectivity and the impartiality of science.



BOOK:

Mind Over Matter. Memory, Forgetting, Brain Donation and the Search for Cures for Dementia book, with text by Bronwyn Parry and photography by Ania Dabrowska will be launched on 11th October during the Private View of the exhibition in Shoredtich Town Hall, London.

The book is designed and published by an award winning PRACTICE and THEORY.



SCIENCE MUSEUM:

Mind Over Matter: A Public Talk6 October, 20117.00–9.00 pm

Science Museum, The Dana Centre, 65 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 5HD Join artist Ania Dabrowska, Dr Bronwyn Parry (Queen Mary, University of London), Professor Carol Brayne (University of Cambridge) and Professor Michael Parker (University of Oxford) for a panel discussion of the ethics of brain and organ donation.



A Symposium: Representing the Contentious

Academics, artists, writers present papers and projects on the theme.

14 October, 201110.00am-4.00pm

Shoreditch Town Hall380 Old StreetLondon EC1V 9LT

Tickets Free

Places are limited, but still available. To register email:

[email protected]




“Anything I can do, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.”

Mrs Ella Wiltshire, Brain Donor

Www.mindovermatterproject.co.uk EXHIBITION: 12-23 OCT 2011 SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL 380 OLD STREET...

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