The Art of Palliative Medicine - 2018 Semester 2
I chose to make a mobile from objects that I found at her favourite beach in Wellington. Throughout the interview the woman we interviewed constantly mentioned the beach and how it served as a place to "let go" and be "free from reality". I thought that a way of capturing the way she felt about her favourite place would be the perfect way to symbolise this extraordinary woman I had the pleasure of meeting.
The shells, twigs and rock represent the importance of 'purity of mind'. They symbolise the organic rawness of human bodies and how delicate they are. The crashes of the waves against the shore shape them into their present state as they hang from the stick. Their slight imperfections make them unique.
Humans are like organic objects. We also have marks, been crashed into or shattered into tiny pieces. As doctors we often forget or frankly do not appreciate that when our bodies are not functioning well there are other ways of treating the problem rather than conventional medicine. For our woman, she believed that if she hadn't listened to her body and tried other alternative therapies then she would not have lived this long.