Chew Chen Jun Benedict

Theme: In Search of Hope

Merit, School Category, 2021

Artist statement:

Everybody wants to live, however, available organs are hard to come across and with the high demand for organs, many without hope slowly loses their grasp of life. For people that have organ failure, they need to have hope in order for them to hold on to life with a positive attitude and wait for an organ to be available for transplant. This artwork portrays a labyrinth that has people suffering from heart disease navigating their way to find the entrance to a new heart for transplant. Those that have started waiting for an organ transplant early would be one step ahead of others, closer to the heart in the labyrinth. The person that finds the heart would get a heart transplant while the others would have to continue waiting for an available heart, searching for other hearts in the labyrinth in this case. These patients would need to have hope, in order for them to continue navigating the endless labyrinth for another heart. Hence, the waiting process for an available organ is just like roaming through a labyrinth, only those that has hope in them would continue searching for a heart, searching for life.

About the Artist

Chew Chen Jun Benedict, 15
Riverside Secondary School