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My heart may be infinite, but my body is not

Photography, Natasha Wein



Statement:

My heart may be infinite, but my body is not; I am trying to remember that this is a gift. Living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and its comorbidities has left me with spine injuries, significant daily pain, and multi-system illnesses. I feel this bitterness and grief stiffening my playful spirit. Every day I practice finding joy, freedom, and hope in the mundane and trying to rewrite my body's narrative from one of tragedy to one of integration and empowerment. Despite the breaking, my body is not failing me; it's preserving me in every way it knows how. I overlapped eight images in this photo to integrate the limits of a body (photos of my neck MRI, my late companion parrot's radiograph, me doing cupping treatments, me doing chin tuck exercises for cervical disc herniations, and my gum recession from weak connective tissue) with the infinite brilliance of what surrounds us (the 2024 eclipse, a local 150-year-old Ginkgo tree, a mushroom spore print, and the presence of my late parrot, Pluto). When I am most sick, I am bed-bound with heat and ice packs. In these moments when treatments fail, all I have left is to bear witness and tell about it. Through the process of integrating images representing illness and representing wonder and nostalgia, I can illustrate what it's like to suffer and still love, despite it all.


 

Natasha Wein is a self-taught queer and disabled artist and writer working out of Stockbridge,

Massachusetts Her psychoanalytically informed creative process is founded on intuition,

projection, and analysis, studying the dialogue between abstraction and language as a window

into the unconscious. She works symbolically with materials and techniques to make sense of

difficult experiences and reorganize memories into more hopeful narratives. She works by

series creating narrative-driven art exhibitions studying themes of liminality and transition,

development and interference, connection and isolation, boundaries and relationships, injury

and mending, conflicted desires, and resilience. Her work is influenced by nature, anatomy,

psychodynamic theory, her bicoastal and New Zealand roots, and her experience living with

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Additionally, she teaches process-focused abstract painting, is the

author of a book of poems, and owns a small business, Berkshire Resin Art. For more on her

work, go to www.nweinart.com and www.berkshireresinart.com and follow her on Instagram at

@nweinart @berkshire_resin_art

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