This is the philosophy that orients me with/in my process: Through photography, installation, performance, and intervention, I aim to challenge stigma. Stigma is a fear […]
Author: gvanlaven
Shake That
Short Film: Dedicated In a world with a worship of thinness and the guilt and sin of the body propelling us, one woman takes on […]
Reflections from the Margins
Phantom Personhood Pain I don’t hate doctors. I hate the sick system. It’s EPIC, factive and immutable diagnoses that are the “us/them” sick/well. It’s a […]
Maintenance Worker
My body takes a lot to maintain. It demands my attention, often with threats of dire consequences if I don’t comply. I am a medical […]
Chafing Rooms
There really is no way to sit. To *settle.* Chafing Rooms evokes the cultural conception of wellness, how we perform as patients, and how spaces […]
In Medical Res
In Medical Res is a story of illness since my beginnings, told from the middle. Over and over, I have found myself plunked in the middle […]
A Drift
In camerawork I explore ideas of motion and stillness in photography and in life. A camera is said to capture, or freeze an action in […]
Bare Witness
For some time since the event of a car careening into and crushing my body, I have had a special affinity for traffic cones. As […]
Pity and Other Superpowers
Once, in a hospital, a tech said to me, “If you throw a pity party, nobody comes.”
Hungering For What
Sometimes it is a hard choice to nourish oneself. I see body shaming and diet culture as violence. Women are often targets, but men are […]
Many Hats
Here is your “pee hat,” she said. They would measure my “I’s and O’s.” The In’s and Out’s, what comes out as urine. The collection […]
Ahh, Wellness
You’ve got to start somewhere… Throughout my studies I’ve found, and myself created, creative work on pain, suffering and illness. I have since challenged myself to […]
Spongiform (Blogish)
Caption the revolution. The box is too small. I woke up this morning with the phrase, “The revolution will not be close captioned” running through […]
Beware, Liquidy
Recently a dear family member was diagnosed with a cognitive decline, early stage dementia. I grieve, but try to be curious. I watch as his […]
Pinhole Dialogue with the Dead
This is a portal to an assailant’s afterlife attained through a pin-pricked peep hole. I had been going armed with my pinhole camera, homemade of […]
(Hidden) in Plain Sight
At the moment of being crushed by a car in my 20’s, I went from medically impaired with invisible disability, to being very visibly disabled. […]