Photos

Title:

Dancing between Dying and living

Maker:

Erika

Typology of knots/meaning:

Beyond of dates of hospital visits, I materialized subjective experiences of symptoms, which are physical, mental and at some point one could argue that some could even be spiritual These experiences were very complex and very hard to communicate. Thinking about how to represent them in form helped me understand their nature without relying in the binary categories that we use in the west (mental or physical. Indeed, one of the struggles to understand what happened is the fact that the first hand experience did not have this sharp separation after a certain point of illness. I know I was physically very ill and had physical symptoms and severe psychological symptoms. But actually this experience if anything made these boundaries blurr, or even question if they actually exist? This activity helped me try to look at them according to other parameters, for instance being pulled downwards to illness or death (intensity represented in how long the vertical axes are), or being held up (represented by knots)

Recorded time:

From 29th February 2020 to 21st March 2020

Concept of Quipu/personal significance:

I materialized a serious illness I had during the pandemic. I tried to find out the dates of important events that could be traced back - two flights, several hospital visits/stays, both in the UK and Spain, and three very intense crisis moments, which dates I was able to trace. I checked the email for the airline confirmations, and build around the calendar to identify the dates I was in hospital as I do not have access to these medical history files at hand. I asked friends and family who took care of me then, to trace or double check the accuracy of this information, which is interesting in itself.