#petaclancy

Peta Clancy and Helen Pynor, The Body is a Big Place, 2011, 5-channel video projection, heart perfusion device and live performance, single-channel video on monitor, soundscape by Gail Priest

The themes of grief and honour are reoccurring throughout Peta Clancy’s works. Clancy’s project The Body is a Big Place (2011) made in collaboration with Helen Pynor, firstly touches on the emotional aspects of waiting for and receiving an organ transplant, which all performers in this work have experienced. The live performance, having taken place in a pool, contains both “raw” and “metaphoric” elements, according to Clancy (2021). Water symbolises the “interior of the body”, in which the performers of the video remain patiently seated at the bottom of the pool and appear to be waiting. The action of waiting in the deep ends of the pool represents the harsh reality of a patient waiting to receive an organ transplant. As for this procedure to occur, people must be prioritised according to severity, and someone must die in order to receive the organ hence grief associated with the process.

Peta Clancy and Helen Pynor, The Body is a Big Place, 2013, heart perfusion device and live performance still, single-channel video on monitor, soundscape by Gail Priest.

Accompanying the live performance is a heart perfusion device placed in the centre of the 5-channelled video projection of the performance using pig hearts. Clancy articulates that this is done to try and bring the audience to “feel empathetic towards the hearts beating outside the bodies” of the pigs (Clancy, 2021). This hence brings about grief and empathy as the viewer is called upon to “reflect on their relationship with their own interior body and their attitudes to organ donation” (Clancy, 2016). Furthermore, the pig hearts used in the perfusion device are also a symbol of honour. Clancy states that they were buried after use to “honour them and honour the process” which they took part in. The video below is a snippet of the installation.

I believe that the title The Body is a Big Place depicts the installation as one monumental body with different channels and pieces representing the different organs working together as systems. The life-threatening process of organ transplantation can produce feelings of empathy, grief and honour once the transplant has been complete, thus depicted in Clancy’s work.

References:

Clancy, P., & Pynor, H. (2011). The Body is a Big Place (Sydney) [5-channel video projection, heart perfusion device and live performance, single-channel video on monitor, soundscape]. Performance Space. https://www.interaliamag.org/interviews/peta-clancy-the-body-is-a-big-place/

Clancy, P. (2011). The Body is a Big Place [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/49877414

Clancy, P., & Pynor, H. (2013). The Body is a Big Place (Ljubljana) [Heart perfusion device and live performance, single-channel video on monitor, soundscape]. Galerija Kapelica. https://www.interaliamag.org/interviews/peta-clancy-the-body-is-a-big-place/

Clancy, P. (2016, June). The Body is a Big Place (interview with Peta Clancy) (Online) [Interview]. INTERALIA MAGAZINE. https://www.interaliamag.org/interviews/peta-clancy-the-body-is-a-big-place/