We Might Have to Excise Your Lung is a project inspired by neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran’s research on how our body is a map constructed by the brain in order to manage it more easily and how that makes the body image changeable in our minds. Jia-Jen Lin presents a series of modular works exploring how modern medicine changes our physical perception with regards to our own bodies. She also questions how our physical bodies lose their integrity and become more fragile under the authority of these medical systems, as our medical technology is moving 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 Does 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 and around a central column, drunk by a radiation oncology patient limited to a liquid diet during his long-term recovery process. Among others, 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.chashama.org or www.jiajenlin.info ‘)}