Art Technique: sculpture and repurposed IV supply caps on foam board
Artist’s Statement
American healthcare comes at a significant cost financially, physically, emotionally, and environmentally while remaining largely inadequate for complex patients. The artist decided to highlight this by accumulating various caps from 42 days of self-administered triple IV antibiotic therapy. The piece is inspired by nurse Tilda Shalof’s mural at Toronto General Hospital with the artist desiring to repurpose “clean” medical waste into something to enjoy and mark endurance (learn about this mural here). Coincidentally, many of the caps were red, white, and blue, adequate to assemble an American flag for the following year’s 250th 4th of July celebration, accented with yellow heparin flush cap fireworks.
ZiAr (she/her) invites you on a creative journey to labor, build, and experience radiant beauty among struggle. ZiAr became severely ill just months after college graduation, facing diagnostic delays for multiple health issues, including late-stage Lyme disease, which necessitated the IV therapy that supplied the medium for her piece. She also writes, considers herself a genre-hopper, and will have poetry published for the first time in an anthology this year.
Instagram: @ziartistic