Ansel Oommen, MLS (ASCP) is a Clinical Laboratory Technologist, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center. His artworks and poem emerged out of his intense experience of the pandemic situation. He writes:
“As a medical technologist working in clinical microbiology in NYC, I have been caught in the epicenter of the American outbreak. Since mid March, I have been conducting SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests on hundreds of patient samples to aid in the diagnosis of COVID-19. As the first human being to see the results of those tests before releasing them out into the world, I was bound by an immense gravity. As an artist, I processed my losses by dissecting, excising, and reconstructing my grief into various collages. These collages were composed of bio-hazard labels, a familiar laboratory item, to convey how elements of politics, public health, mental health, and ecology overlap. The use of bio-hazard labels also alludes to my academic training in toxicology. By capitalizing on aposematic color codes, these pieces are visual warnings for viewers to stop and reflect on the various threats that plague our world.”
Special Collection: Creativity in the Time of the Pandemic 2020>>
Autoimmunity
We are not immune as we once believed
We are not immune to business as usual
When business has always been busy
Prescribing profits over prudence
With false prophecies of golden years
We are not immune to the viral strains
Of rabid voices coughing up empty words
Ever mutating sense into missense
Each echo more feral than before
We are not immune to the dissemination of lies
Aerosolized and transmitted as truth
For even with repeat exposure
We still react to what was never foreign
We are not immune to the poisons of privilege
As we amputate left to save what is right
As we amputate right to save what is left
When instead, the diagnosis was truly systemic
We are not immune to being the greatest
When we fill our graveyards to be the least
As we reach the end stage of life as we know it
While we await a vaccine for all our ills
Let us remember:
The disease was always within ourselves
The pandemic was just a symptom.
Artworks
Published on May 04, 2020. © Artist