Marion Laval-Jeantet has injected herself with horse blood plasma as part of an artistic project exploring trans-species relationships.

Laval-Jeantet and her creative partner Benoit Mangin (working as collective Art Orienté Objet) were keen to explore the blurring of boundaries between species in the piece, entitled May the Horse Live in Me. Laval-Jeantet prepared her body to accept the horse blood plasma by getting injected with different horse immunoglobulins over the course of several months.

These foreign animal antibodies were injected in progressively larger amounts to allow her to build up tolerance in a process that she referred to as “mithridatisation,” after the Persian king of Pontus, Mithridates VI, who supposedly built up an immunity to poison by regularly consuming small doses of it.

Earlier this year, after months of preparation, she was injected with horse blood plasma, which contained the full spectrum of immunoglobulins without provoking an allergic reaction.

As part of the performance piece she also wore a set of stilts with hooves on the end to feel at one with the horse. She also walked around with the donor horse in a “communication ritual” before having her hybrid blood extracted and freeze-dried.

She explained to Centre Press that the whole process made her feel “hyper-powerful, hyper-sensitive and hyper-nervous.” She added: “I had a feeling of being superhuman. I was not normal in my body. I had all of the emotions of a herbivore. I couldn’t sleep and I felt a little bit like a horse.”

Art Orienté Objet has a long history of working in the bioart space, having created other pieces including Skin Culture, which uses bioengineered skin as a canvas for animal-shaped tattoos.

Check out the performance piece of the project in the video above.