MRI in use / by Darian Goldin Stahl.

Vancouver : Malaspina, [2016]

11 unnumbered pages : illustrations (some colour) ; 20 x 24 cm

3/3.

Encaustic transfer on silk.

"The central theme of this book concerns the anxious memory of being repeatedly scanned in a hospital, and the weight of those events on everyday life. I am most interested in the tension between reductive medical scans and living, whole body they are meant to serve. By portraying the patterns found on hospital gowns and MRI scans alongside of patterns found in the home, I aim to give a more holistic view of what it is like to live with disease. During my eught-month residency at Malaspina Printmakers, I developed a toner transfer technique that allows me to print onto silk by hand. This process allows me to incorporate a full color range and control the opacity or transparency for each page, all while keeping the flexibility and translucency of silk. Finally, the pages are bound using a stab stitch that recalls the spinal column portrayed in the book. By flipping the pages, the viewer moves through the patient's body and thougts. The text is a first-person narrative from my sister, while she reflects on her experiences in the hospital. Each letter in the text is appropriated from the metadata in her MRI scans, and arranged in the same dense and confusing manner. This gesture forces a slower read, while both the viewer and my sister must decipher difficult memories. The images combine her MRI scans, hospital gowns, and the horizontal lines that are produced from light escaping between Venetian blinds. This mix of medical imagery and home produce a psychological snapshot of the patient's uneasy mind while she is being scanned, and how these memories then follow her through daily life. "MRI IN USE" is part of a continuing pursuit to reclaim, re-present, and identify with the ill body. While MRI scans reveal truths about the patient's body, they cannot speak to what it is like moving through our world with chronic illness. By engaging an artistic reclamation over medical imagery, I seek to better reveal this all-too human experience."--From artist.