Writing with the Dead: Tradition, Innovation and Non-Physical Stewardship in Organ Donation Research

This painting emerges from collaborative research with Tonya Bradford on deceased organ donor families, and from my experience of writing with the dead. Organ donation sits at the intersection of tradition and innovation: between remembrance and biomedical capacities to extend life through transplantation. Our research explores how donor families enact stewardship over their loved ones. Yet while writing, I have encountered something harder to explain: a sense of being accompanied by the deceased donors whose stories I carry.
 

The icons in the top left evoke deceased organ donors and the connections I felt to them while writing the manuscript. One afternoon, I felt accompanied by a seventeen-year-old boy from the dataset whose life had ended suddenly. He did not arrive as data, or as absence, but as a vivid presence. The blue vein-like form represents the encounter’s energy: young, masculine, innocent, excited, and unmistakably powerful, clear as blue crystal.
 

The painting uses lines and circles to show two realities layered together. The lines represent the physical world: bounded, structured, and organised through time, space, and place. The circles represent non-physical beings and presences encountered through writing. Complete circles suggest presences gathered around me as luminous, watchful forms of support. Together, the painting explores academic writing as a site where physical and non-physical worlds meet​.

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Artwork Location: Conference Hall 1