Abstract

My mother died within the first few months of the pandemic. Her sudden and rapid decline from Alzheimer's disease is difficult to separate from the COVID-19 restrictions put in place by her nursing home just two months prior. We went from visiting her daily to not at all, then to a strictly enforced twenty-minute hospice visit to say goodbye. After her passing, and still amidst the pandemic, I could not write. The conventional methods and outputs of bioethics inquiry felt impossible.Making art is the only thing that felt possible then. Perhaps that's the function of art, to make things feel more possible. I began by collecting materials from work—package inserts, empty prescription bottles and gelatin capsules—to...