How do you communicate when you are left speechless? These works reckon with that very question, considering the lived experience of aphasic periods brought on by severe chronic migraines, when spoken language overwhelms or dissolves entirely. If one’s disabling symptoms include brain fog, cognitive challenges, or issues with expressive and receptive language, the problem can be twofold: coping with the befuddling muteness, and communicating its felt effects to doctors or other medical providers. Even if you can speak, will you be understood or believed? What is the personal and societal cost of being silenced?

Much of this body of work was shared at Willing & Able, a disability arts exhibition and workshop series at Portland’s Sator Projects in 2023, with additional explorations of chronic illness and disability continued within my collage practice.