After
many years of stomach trouble, my sister Sandra
was formally
diagnosed with Crohn's disease in 1977. She was
17 years old.
Throughout the years, she went in and out of hospitals,
was
in constant pain, underwent debilitating painful
treatments and surgeries, her life interrupted
by the irrevocable demands of chronic illness.
In her final years she was on home care, undergoing
treatment with two kinds of chemotherapy, intravenous
alimentation, antibiotic therapy, and experimental
protocols. The quality of her life had declined
to an unbearable point, and in her last hospitalization,
she just let go. She was 35.
the things she left behind is about the
transcendence that is death - a transition in
which there are things that cannot pass. In Sandra's
case, she left behind that very diseased body
and all its accouterments, what she took along
was her spirit, her soul.
This piece is about the transcendence of her illness,
and all the pain, suffering and anguish of that
illness. After having shared those 17 years of
disease intimately with her, that is my only consolation.
That her spirit has gone on, free of these things,
the things she left behind.
September, 1995
MATERIALS
USED IN THIS INSTALLATION
The hands at the entrance are made of the latex
surgical gloves that were used constantly on Sandra,
probing, examining, applying, invading, here transformed.
The
medical equipment past the entrance is one box
of medical equipment, out of fifteen, that was
in Sandra's home when she died.
The
x-rays are Sandra's actual x-rays, which show
the unremitting progress of her disease.
Throughout
the installation I used corn husks, corn meal,
and corn. Corn sustains much of the life in this
hemisphere, represents a little piece of the sun
for us earthbound mortals and provides, for me,
a sublime connection to the divine.
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