US

Grzegorz Wełnicki

2018 - Ongoing

My work asks questions and challenges contemporary social and cultural attitudes towards the perception of death, the quality of life, reflections on the essence of humanity on philosophical and technological grounds. The story of our corporeality aims to begin a discourse about what has been tabooed or is socially marginalized:

medical bioengineering, technology in medical service, change in the perception of a dead body and the aspect of loss. Such a discourse could reveal the needs and solutions for the development of bioengineering in Poland. The increasingly appearing idea of transhumanism in this aspect considers dysfunctional elements of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease and ageing, to be undesirable, often still remaining only an idea but also a goal.

Modern, diminishing contact with death, a culture based on the endless need for youth, its improvement, resisting death through science, strongly intensifies the fear of dealing with the subject of death in everyday life. In the XIX and early XX-centuries, post-mortem photography was very popular, due to several reasons of the more frequent presence of death in everyday life, as well as its absence in photography, people did not have too many such photos, and post-mortem photography is the last moment to paradoxically, keep the memories alive. It has in itself attributes of simultaneous passing and keeping away from the loss, preservation of consciousness for an indefinite period of time.

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  • Deceased body of a woman, awaiting preparation for burial.

  • Pacemakers removed from the bodies before the cremation process. Some older generation furnaces may be

    damaged when the pacemaker explodes. The device can explode when high combustion temperatures are
    reached.

  • Bionic prosthesis prototype created by Sławomir Grycuk (PhD student at Białystok University of Technology) using
    3D printing technics.

  • After completion of the section, all organs are placed in a plastic bag and then go to the abdominal cavity. Finally, technicians stitch the body.

  • Tissue Engineering. Foundation of Research and Science Development is working on bionic pancreatic flakes
    tissue.

  • Microscopic image of a pancreatic flake printed with bioink.

  • Microscopic image of a pancreatic flake printed with bioink.

  • The body of a man, whose death was a result of choking on a peel of fruit from theft.

  • @wilktrenuje
    Trainer, dietitian, athlete.

  • Physical model of prosthetic hand with pneumatic muscles. Diploma thesis by Yaroslav Antonchyk in Automatic
    Control and Robotics Department at the Opole University of Technology.

  • Parts made of precious metals: acetabular hip , screws, plates and other elements remaining after the cremation of
    bodies. Separated from the ashes of the deceased, they go to the recycling process.

  • Thanatopraxia is, inter alia, a procedure stopping putrefactive processes. A specially prepared solution is injected

    into the arteries. The procedure is performed for the needs of public display of the body after death and for long- range body transportation. The chemistry used in this process is harmful to the environment, which is why some

  • @piotrkrakowskilotr
    Masterchef TV show participant, personal trainer, TEDx speaker.

  • Element of a human.

  • Deceased human body.

  • Removing a pacemaker. The elliptical part of the device was placed under the skin, metal electrodes led straight to
    the organ.

  • Fragment of a limb prosthesis.


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