POrTaLS:
Transiting Disability with Post-Acute-Sequelae
SARS-COV-2, 2023

Acrylic gouache on paper, 2023.

“Portals...” is a queer, feminist, (newly) disabled approach to art that works to capture the pain, fear, grief, anger, and acceptance that are involved in surviving a global pandemic that leaves you disabled and forever changed. It uses the methodologies of science and data collection, the sensibilities of public art, the insights of historical viewpoints, and the tactics of community activism to innovatively combine medical data with emotional responses in order to generate empathy and empowerment. These images are a work-in-progress of this ongoing examination of the new somatic experience. I continue to refamiliarize myself with art-making in a body that has been affected on a vascular level by Covid-19, a body that is constantly fatigued, chronically pained, foggy, and just sl-oww e  r     r      r       . Using the imagery of a bright concentric archway combined with repurposing the myriad prescription and supplement bottles used to treat my symptoms, I am positioning the site of disabling as a portal to somewhere else, as yet unknown.