Thanks again to the Women’s Center for Creative Work for inviting me to their pop-up residency at the LA Art Book Fair in February!
This was the first time I’d gotten to play “nurse” with this project. Actually applying the (underinsured) and (uninsured) tattoos to people’s bodies – people who very much wanted to name their precarity publically, at a time when “everyone” is supposed to be insured – felt like a symbolic manifestation of nursing inside a broken system. My actions were obviously merely palliative, applying band-aids to breaks, but the moments of connection and discussion with strangers were funny, poignant, and sometimes, strangely, mutually triumphant. People talked to me and to each other, to whoever was around, to whoever would listen, about not having health insurance, about going broke or staying hurt because of high deductibles.
Hoping these tattoos spurred further conversations. “Universal Coverage” still means safety for so very few of us. We keep naming our conditions ’til they change…
