Description

This exhibit stemmed from my experiences with ongoing health concerns while navigating health care as an uninsured undergraduate student in the San Diego area. It follows the events of my concussion, which I sustained in February 2022, the aftermath, and what it meant to lack access to competent care during that time. Through two poems, an accompanying art piece and essay, this exhibit looks at disability through the poetic, artistic, and essay form in order to convey the complexities of dealing with memory loss and sudden vision impairment following a concussion. The first piece: A Memory Test, goes through my experiences at Calpulli Center at SDSU post-concussion; the second: On Vision, explores optical migraines through poetry and a mixed media art piece that acts as a lens into a rapid moment of vision loss while driving. Ultimately, this project is narrative based, it explores access during Viral times; it explores disability through Crip theory, accommodations, and ongoing fears of conditions worsening. This research project takes an interdisciplinary approach to narrative research through primary and secondary lenses. The primary lens is multimedia and visual arts. For this, I worked with narrative based poetry, and plan to work with visual imagery and the textile arts to create the art piece, featured in On Vision, that works in conversation with the poetry. The secondary lens is the narrative essay form. The accompanying essay further explores the theoretical frameworks surrounding Crip theory, living in Viral times, making private writing public. The results of this project are ongoing. As this is a lived experience, I continue to face the repercussions that lack of access and competent care can result in. The results further explore my experiences through the larger social narratives that are ongoing through our current Viral times. While this project is continuing, the larger conclusion was that having access to competent care, especially on a college campus, is integral to student success and wellbeing. For uninsured students facing injury and disability, we need to create an atmosphere that validates experiences and pursues ongoing treatment options.