We Might Have to Excise Your Lung

We Might Have to Excise Your Lung
By Jia-Jen Lin

April 25 – May 4, 2014

Open Hours: 1 - 6 pm, Thursdays to Sundays

Reception for the Artist:
Saturday April 26, 2014  4 - 6 pm

chashama 461 Gallery
461 West 126th Street
New York, NY 10027

Jia-Jen Lin presents a series of modular works exploring how modern medicine changes our physical perception with regards to our own bodies. Inspired by neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran’s research on body mapping, We Might Have to Excise Your Lung questions how our physical bodies lose their integrity and become more fragile under the authority of these medical systems, as our medical technology moves faster than we can imagine.    

‘We Can See Them Gradually Dissolving’ is a group of clear resin sculptures cast from various medical anatomy models. Red color tints inside the casts symbolize suspicious entities and growths expanding or disappearing. ‘60 Gram Is Non Dose’ is a sculpture composed of metal pipes and rods, feeding bags, and air pumping machinery. By combining the shapes of chandelier and organ pipes (symbols of luxury and spirituality) with those of disposable medical supplies, Lin recomposes them into a sarcastic mechanical contraption. In the center of the exhibition space, there are approximately 1,200 empty nutrition cans laid out on the ground, drunk by a cancer patient limited to a liquid diet during his long-term recovery process. Jia-Jen will also present a series of photographs of resin casts and a video animated from CT scan images.    

Jia-Jen Lin is a visual artist living and working in New York and Taichung. Her work creates imagery that relates to the human body as it reflects in our minds. She uses sculptures, installations, videos, and performance collaborations to portray the ongoing negotiation between our original desires and the manipulated realities in our fast-changing contemporary lives.    

This project is supported by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture, Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taichung City Government, Sculpture Space, and chashama 461 Gallery.

Science consultancy courtesy of Jason Lai, neuroscience postdoctoral fellow at the Skirball Institute of NYU Langone Medical Center.

For more info please visit www.jiajenlin.info