Episode 56 | Rosary Solimanto, Interdisciplinary Artist, Activist

Have you ever gone under water searching for silence? Do you focus on staying under a bit longer to think and to feel the peace? Or, do you grow desperate and go for air? Are you thankful you can come up for air? Do you go out there and live?

For Rosary Solimanto going down under was not a choice. She was living her life and suddenly, she was thrown into the water to drown. She could see the light, the outside world, but something larger than her kept under desperate for air, for life. I think somewhere in her crucifixion Rosary found a place of stillness and silence - that place where you can go to fetch that thing that just might save your life. That, there, is such a lonely journey…

But she ferociously set herself free and came up for air to live, and she’s taking on the healthcare industry with performance (Dead without Health Care, Alive, The Patient) with sculptures (Weight, Cripple, Trigeminal Neuralgia), by building a new health care narrative, and working to debunk the image of the wheelchair from the health care lexicon in favor of ADAPT.

Her valor and her work are for all of us. To put it elegantly, this entire health care debacle is disgraceful. To me, these men, the ones presenting the health care agenda are low lives. I’m repulsed by all of it and by them, and not just now, but from way before. The whole thing is just a racket. If there is any silver lining is the fact that their moral monstrosity has made it plain and apparent that health care must be universal because health care is a human right.