One year after I donated my kidney to my mother I was invited to be part of Avid Gallery’s exhibition showcase women carvers in New Zealand. This is the work that I put together for that show.  

A body of work that reflects on my kidney donation to my mother. It examines the mother / daughter relationship and the process of giving back that donation entails. The work is bodily but also laden with symbolism- bone kidneys with ovaries and puzzle sockets cut out, woven arteries, umbilical cords and dressings, needles that speak of surgery and craft. Donation is an intimate process, reflected by the domesticity of the work but it is also very technical and objectifying. Enabled by medicine, and a lengthy barrage of tests, donation requires difficult conversations, intense self reflection, and blind commitment. 

This series explores the body and its intricacies, probing its inner workings and disintegrations, its tubes and organs and tissue. It celebrates the shared body, a common property gifted from mother to child and back again. In keeping with the confinement that recovery entails, every work is restricted to materials that have been located at my parents’ home where my mother and I recovered. Carving, weaving and repurposing found objects, the organic quality of the materials themselves reflects the untidy workings of the body.

Medals, talismans, reliquaries and tools; the work acknowledges bravery in the face of illness, stoicism through medicalisation, solidarity during the disruption of surgery alongside the honour of love and sacrifice and the power of the body to heal. It is a celebration of human nature and medical prowess, a reflection and closure and a gift to my mother.