The dual-channel snippets document the process of peripheral stem cell transplantation, as the artist’s family member has their blood type coincidentally matched with a last-stage cancer patient. During the process, the donor’s body is connected to a separator, where stem cells are extracted, with remaining blood being returned to the donor. The work’s title recalls the historical case of the Japanese nuclear fuel plant worker Hisashi Ouchi, known as “the world’s most radioactive man”, who was an early recipient of the transplantation in 1999. Ouchi, however, did not survive due to a high amount of radioactivity that ultimately killed the newly planted stem cells. The title also quotes Sonnet 15 of William Shakespeare, in which the poet compared the mortality of humans to plants, and their unavoidable decay with time. The title hints at a layered reading of this medical operation from historical and botanical perspectives: flown, grown, optimised.

These relationships were further unpacked in a performance lecture weaving spoken words and projected archival images from multidisciplinary sources, commissioned by British Council with Film London, Videotage and g39 Cardiff and were jointly presented with artists Zillah Bowes and Roanna Holmes-Frodsham.

(Note: The videos are designed to play simultaneously on loop.)

Coalescing lens-based media, installation, performance, and writing, Kwan Q Li’s practice examines the relations of conflict within postcolonial, technopolitical, and ecological explorations. Her work has been supported and exhibited by institutions and platforms including Videotage, Film London, Design Trust, Para Site, IdeasCity (NTU CCA and the New Museum), the Ashmolean Museum, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Ars Electronica and more, with writings featured in Thresholds (MIT Press) and AI & Society (Springer). Li holds degrees from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, where she was awarded the Stuart Morgan Prize for Art History, and from MIT’s SMACT program, where she received the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize. Her photobook, Weeds, was published by MACK in Winter 2025.