The Dashes In Between
The Dashes In Between is a visual conversation around how my family have lived with a chronic kidney condition called polycystic kidney disease. It is an intergenerational dialogue on how it has framed our lives, and particularly how that framing has been passed down while also shifting with each new perspective.
I have always known that I have this kidney condition, and that it was inherited from my father. This knowledge has been ever present in my mind as I go through life, having to ponder every small gesture based on impact to overall health outcomes.
Visual variations throughout this body of art bring a presentness of what lies invisible inside the body. Raine and Skye End of Film Diptych was processed using the urine that was in my body at the time the image was made. The shift in tonalities and the colorful veiling of the emulsion layers brings to the surface what normally goes unnoticed. The crafting of this image replicates medical collection, processing, and measuring of how the body is functioning.
This hyper awareness led me to observe how my dad engaged with his own body as he introduced me to the continuing intergenerational conversation. My dad would share fragmented stories told nonlinearly in a late-night herbally fueled manner. They often seemed scattered and unrelated, but after his death in 2018, they shifted more into focus as parts of his life that mirror my own iteration of the aging process.
The aging process is reflected in this body of art through the frames, which I made using spalted maple wood. This wood has been introduced to fungus that changes its structure, and is considered diseased. However, instead of being viewed as something that needs to be fixed, it is revered for its uniqueness as a part of nature.
This body of art brings into focus the moments of our lives lived. It can be easy to place too much emphasis on the grandness of the known unknowns of birth/death. As my contribution to this intergenerational dialogue, I would rather hold a dualistic truth of life and focus on the dashes in between.
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