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Exhibition previews: Visions of a better tomorrow brighten 2019

Plug-and-play human organs, non-human intelligences and missions to Mars add speculative spice to a year of cultural events focused on the future

By Simon Ings

2 January 2019

3D printed hearts

Salomé Bazin’s bespoke 3D-printed hearts aid pre-operative planning

Big Heart Data (2018), Salomé Bazin (Cellule-studio) © Gareth McKee

Spare Parts, Science Gallery London, 28 February to 12 May

THIS winter, curator Stephanie Delcroix’s new exhibition asks peculiar and pressing questions about the body.

It is nearly 65 years since Joseph Murray and a team at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston performed the first successful organ transplant (passing a kidney between identical twins Ronald and Richard Herrick), and still our imaginations are haunted by the mystery, menace and sheer potential of maintaining human life with spare parts.

Exoskeletons and prosthetic…

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