Archival Art Print of "Baño" by Aurora Levins Morales

Archival Art Print of "Baño" by Aurora Levins MoralesAbout The Work At the start of my project on harmful chemicals and human health, I made this image of my child self, bathing in the midst of white streaks of pesticide powder, surrounded by the petalled shape of a colony of Pseudomonas fluorescens, the most effective bacterium for breaking down the pesticides aldrin and dieldrin, strongly link both to drug resistant epilepsy and the multiple myeloma that killed my mother. A recurring image throughout

About The Work

At the start of my project on harmful chemicals and human health, I made this image of my child self, bathing in the midst of white streaks of pesticide powder, surrounded by the petalled shape of a colony of Pseudomonas fluorescens, the most effective bacterium for breaking down the pesticides aldrin and dieldrin, strongly link both to drug resistant epilepsy and the multiple myeloma that killed my mother. A recurring image throughout the Ferment series, passionflower vines, which are strongly medicinal for epilepsy, make a healing frame at the left edge of the piece. After I finished Baño and saw what I had made, I realized it was ceremony. Mikvah and baño, how else does a Caribbean Jew begin but with a ritual bath?

About The Ferment Series

My multi-genre project, Ferment, explores the impact of “chemicals of control” starting with my own pesticide-induced epilepsy and expanding into a global story of military and agricultural toxicity. My work, in words or in visual art, never documents the terrible without offering some medicine for it. In this case, it’s an immersion into microbiology and the beneficial bacteria that can bioremediate everything from the pesticide dieldrin, to plastic waste, to the residues of war.