As well as its central physical function in pumping life through our bodies, the heart has played a powerful role in our culture, acting as a metaphor for many human emotions. It is used as a symbol of love and empathy (‘heart-to-heart’, ‘heart-breaker’), fear (‘heart-stopping’), grief (‘heart-rending’) – and to encapsulate people’s deepest feelings about themselves (‘heart-searching’, ‘heartfelt’).

This metaphorical role of the heart inspired ‘Arbor Vitae’ (Tree of Life), a sculpture by artist Lucy Orta, commissioned for a countrywide arts project. “I asked people from the local communities to donate objects that meant something to them, and hung them on the tree of life,” she explains. Among these personal memorabilia were a dress worn on a first date, an earring, a Doc Martens boot, a tricycle, Barbie dolls and photos of loved ones. “From the sublime to the banal, they all meant something to someone.”

Royal Doulton donated 100 black and white bone china hearts to hang on the Tree of Life. Of those, 50 remain on the ‘tree’ – and 50 were donated to the Wellcome Trust for an exhibition at the TwoTen Gallery in 2002. Proceeds of the hearts sold at that exhibition were donated to the British Heart Foundation. Some, however, can still be seen inside a display in the Wellcome Trust’s new headquarters.

‘Arbor Vitae’ was conceived as part of a larger project, OPERA.tion Life Nexus, developed by Lucy and her husband Jorge. This evolving interdisciplinary project aims to raise awareness of the issues of heart transplantation and donation through a series of workshops and exhibitions held across the globe. Participants in the workshops are invited to consider the parallels between the clinical transplantation of the heart as a ‘foreign body’ into a potentially hostile environment and the sometimes tricky move of a foreign citizen into the social tissue of a new country.

External links

• OPERA.tion Life Nexus