Elsa Schiaparelli (1890 – 1973) was as much an artist as she was an anatomist. By this, I do not mean to contend that her experience lay in the meticulous work of anatomy labs or dissection theaters, but rather that her sartorial silhouettes, bodices, embroideries, and embellishments demonstrate a singular sort of reverse dissection…
Category: Arts and Creativity
At a crossroads: Trauma and technology in Bruce Conner’s short film at 50
Torn between wonder and horror, I stand before a towering projector screen as a mushroom cloud erupts over and over—and over and over and over. The sheer violence of this moment is jarring. It feels so present within the confines of this dim museum screening room. I watch unsettled as the camera cuts from one…
A Portrait of Care in Motion: Lauren W. Westerfield’s Woman House
Accompanying her mother for her ECT treatment at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, Lauren W. Westerfield devours Jean Frémon’s Now, Now, Louison over two consecutive nights. Frémon’s book, as he states and Westerfield herself echoes, is a “portrait in motion.” Rather than a crude biography, it is composed as the inner dialogue…
Pinocchio and the Treatment-Resistant Patient
No sooner has Pinocchio learned to stand on newly-crafted legs, than he slips out the front door and runs away. He moves spontaneously, pre-reflectively. He stares, laughs and pokes his tongue out, he pulls hair, kicks, and runs away. He refuses to dwell in the master’s studio, preferring instead to wander in the university of…
Bodies That Resist Cure: Trauma, Monstrosity, and Care Beyond the Clinic
In Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017) and Frankenstein (2025), the figure of the monster operates as a powerful commentary on violence, trauma, and healing. Posing the central question of what care looks like when our institutions—medical, political, and scientific—fail to provide it, del Toro’s monsters ask us if the clinic, the lab,…
“Into Their Home”: Thoughts on “Total Institutions” From the Perspective of a Visiting Artist
“In this article, I would like to propose a format that is halfway between a reflective essay on “total institutions” (E. Goffman) from the perspective of a visiting artist, and a practical guide for future guest artists in those institutions.”
Finnegan Shannon’s crip time reimaginings
Every 60 minutes a clock’s hand travels around its face. One hour follows another, and then another and another. 24 times over to make a day. Our bodies are bound by clocks—by their ceaseless onslaught of seconds, minutes, hours—imposing hegemonic notions of movement through time and space. Rigid schedules without a moment to waste. But…
From Interval to Image: Carson, Mann, and the Art of Clinical Reasoning
In attempting to explain how physicians in my field of geriatric medicine think through clinical cases, I have come to realize over the course of my training that, although the prevailing schemas of clinical reasoning are often presented as algorithmic, the interval between observation and a formal diagnosis feels less like a straightforward thought process…
Disability, Empowerment, and Art: On Hospital Aesthetics with Amanda Cachia
Amanda Cachia’s Hospital Aesthetics: Disability, Medicine, Activism was published by Manchester University Press last September. Cachia is a curator and art historian with a joint appointment as Professor of Practice in Museum Studies at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, where she is also Affiliate Faculty in Disability Studies….
Lies and Goodbyes: Lulu Wang’s The Farewell (2019)
In an early shot from Lulu Wang’s 2019 film The Farewell, the camera focuses on the movie’s elderly protagonist in what is clearly a medical setting. In Wang’s script, the acting directions state that “Nai Nai sits alone in a hospital gown awaiting her X-ray.” There, “she has a coughing fit.” Although a disconnected arm…