SANA (HEAL/SANE, 2020)

In the field of cognitive neuroscience the term “repetition priming” refers to an improvement in behavioral response after repeated exposure to a word, object or idea. During the pandemic, I sought to test whether this process can be adapted as a tool for psychosomatic healing: Can belief become incarnate? Can materials become rituals? While language physically alters neural circuitry—and as such can be considered living material—bleach and copper inform the aesthetic logic of the work: copper registers touch, time and energy through electrical conductivity and color change. Bleach, on the other hand, is subtractive. Within erasure, something is sanitized and something is lost. The title, “SANA” means both the verb “to heal” in Spanish, and the noun “sane,” from having sanity, exemplifying the impossibility of separating bodystate and mindstate, or movement from being.