Temporary Site-Specific Public Art Installation, July-September, 2025
Kansas City Crossroads Arts District
This round of Artboards features deeply personal and collaborative works that explore themes of healing, transformation, and the intersection of practice and memory. Kati Toivanen’s Chimera delves into her experience as a bone marrow transplant recipient, living with the complex reality of a body that now houses blood and immune cells from a male donor, while the rest of her cells remain her own. Through organic imagery that evokes blood, tissue, and cellular matter, Toivanen reflects on the ongoing process of healing, balancing both her personal and medical narratives.
Artist Statement
A person with two different sets of DNA is called a chimera and I am one of them. In the summer of 2022, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia and in 2023 I received a bone marrow transplant from an anonymous donor to heal my blood. My donor is a healthy young man, so my blood and immune cells are now male, but the rest of my cells remain female. My cancer is in remission, but my body remains a battleground between the donated and my own cells. This comingling manifests in symptoms of graft-versus-host disease. In this series of images I manipulate and explore elements that resemble blood, cells, tissue, and other organic matter as I imagine and visualize the ongoing process of healing and growth in my body.