Donor is a collaborative response to the Human Cell Atlas by poets Imtiaz Dharker and Linda France, and visual artist Kate Sweeney. Donor has been conceived through a series of exchanges between the artist and poets, and two scientists working on the Human Cell Atlas, Professor Muzlifah Haniffa and Dr Krishnaa Mahbubani. Centring around the interrelational complexities of human tissue donation, the collective approach to making the work reflects, and also reflects upon, the processes of collective and collaborative practices that underpin the Human Cell Atlas research project.

Artists

Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and video film maker. Awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 2014, her six collections include Over the Moon and her latest, Luck Is the Hook, with poems featured widely on radio and television, as well as the London Underground and Mumbai buses.

Linda France lives in Northumberland.  She has published eight poetry collections, including The Toast of the Kit-Cat Club(Bloodaxe 2005) and Reading the Flowers (Arc 2016).  She edited Sixty Women Poets (Bloodaxe 1993) and won the 2013 National Poetry Competition.

Kate Sweeney is a visual artist based in the North East of England. Her work utilises moving image, drawing, photography and sound and focusses on video as a tool of collage and collaboration. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally including at Sydney Int. Film Festival, Zebra Film Festival in Berlin, Manchester Animation Festival, The Int. Poetry Festival in London.