The Renaissance

Medium: Foam wrap, wool and thread

Size: 120x100 cm

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These shared images reflect my experience of being ill with Covid19 as well as participating in the RCA program residency, “Prick and Stitch Alliance”, at Standpoint Gallery.

I reflected during my time in hospital, thinking that being pricked with needles was in some way related to the residency. My body was a lab for all sorts of remedies. I made a piece for the residency’s exhibition during my 11-nights' quarantine stay at the Renaissance Hotel upon returning to the UK. I was still recovering from Covid 19 some weeks earlier and my lungs were still affected. As backing for the work, I used the material that had wrapped my medicine for transport on the flight home. Pricking and stitching this material was a fragile undertaking. I viewed the scan of my lungs taken in hospital in Colombia and copied the image onto the work. The needle piercing the material felt like the pain in my lungs, a feeling I infused into the work.

Unexpectedly, books on medicine, body and health influenced my work. I was stimulated in a new way and my own body, habits and routines became a focus of discussion, whilst also containing reflections on today’s pandemic and the idea of a collective infection due to our nature as a social species. Being alone also shaped my work, seeing how fragile but at the same time how strong our body is to fight on.