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Impressions Gallery

exhibitions: past

The Prospect of Immortality

Murray Ballard

10th Jun - 17th Sep 2011

The result of five year’s unprecedented access and international investigation, Murray Ballard offers an amazing photographic insight into the practice of cryonics: the process of freezing a human body after death in the hope that scientific advances may one day bring it back to life. Premiering at Impressions Gallery, this is Murray Ballard’s first major solo show.

Ballard’s images take the viewer on a journey through the tiny but dedicated international cryonics community, from the English seaside retirement town of Peacehaven; to the high-tech laboratories of Arizona; to the rudimentary facilities of Kriorus, just outside Moscow. Worldwide there are approximately 200 ‘patients’ stored permanently in liquid nitrogen, with a further thousand people signed up for cryonics after death.

Whilst members have often been ridiculed for their views, Ballard takes an objective stance, allowing the viewer to consider the ethics of the practice, and to decide whether members are caught up in a fantasy world or are actually furthering genuine scientific innovation. Alongside fascinating representations of the technical processes, Ballard sensitively portrays the people involved, offering a human dimension to his account of this 21st century attempt to conquer the age-old quest for immortality.

Within the exhibition, under many of the images you will see a small pixelated square. This is called a QR (Quick Response) code and if you have a smartphone you can scan these codes to listen directly to the people involved, or download short texts that may challenge or confirm your assumptions about cryonics.

Exhibition resources

Click here to download an information sheet about the exhibition (pdf 176kb)
Click here to download a large print information sheet about the exhibition (pdf 136kb)
Click here to download The Prospect of Immortality QR code transcripts (pdf 9.9mb)