Grace shares a site-specific art performance on a public staircase, turning inhospitable architecture into a space she can occupy on her own terms. "My childhood was spent in therapy trying to 'fix me.' The goal was always to walk. Looking back, I can't help but feel that maybe they pushed it because they knew it was an impossible goal—that I was never going to get where they wanted me to be, so I had to keep coming back. It never made sense to be treated like a problem that needed a cure, when no cure exists."

Amaranta, born with spina bifida, pauses on a steep trail with forearm crutches. “At 15, I had a surgery to enlarge my bladder… I woke up paralyzed,” she says. Doctors told her they weren’t sure if she would be able to walk again, and she taught herself for a second time. “I want to keep walking for as long as I can walk because it cost me a lot.”

Amaranta Navigates a Steep Hill. Amaranta’s back tattoos were created over two sacred ceremonies. Before receiving the markings, she went into meditation to ask her spirit guides and ancestors for permission. “We asked for intuitive guidance for the shaman to be able to create something for me that is very telling of my spirit, my essence, and my purpose in this lifetime,” she explains. “Being adorned with it on my physical body represents the expansion of my essence and of my spirit.” The staircase lines represent courage and life cycles. The stars show her spirit reaching the cosmos. She views the markings as an expansion of her spirit.

Amaranta describes her life within the U.S. healthcare system as a perpetual state of in-betweenness," where patients are often treated as liabilities rather than individuals. "I think sometimes I forget that my body is not just like this thing that’s outside of me that other people are trying to analyze and identify in a very clinical, distant way," she says. "I’m trying to visualize me giving so much love to my body still despite it being sick.” - Amaranta

Lupita’s story begins before she was born. Six months into pregnancy, her mother knew something was wrong and could not get doctors to listen. She could not feel the baby kicking, and her doctor dismissed her multiple times. A nurse told her to say she was in pain, and that lie triggered imaging that revealed an abnormality on Lupita’s spine. She was delivered by emergency C-section and underwent her first surgery the day she was born. Her mother prayed to La Virgen de Guadalupe and named her in her honor. Today, Lupita is in kidney failure again, with kidney function at 5%, waiting for a transplant, and was just forced to undergo dialysis. A transplant means lifelong immunosuppression and heightened infection risk, on top of the infection risk she already manages from catheterizing.

Lupita outside of the hospital where she was rushed to the emergency room in February after experiencing troubling symptoms of late stage kidney failture.

Lupita at a dialysis consultation. She is still waiting for approval for a kidney transplant.

Lupita shows her belly button at a dialysis consultation.

“I observe who chooses to look and who chooses to look away. ...the idea of being ashamed of the crippled body or the disabled body and it being something that people see as ugly. They don't want to look at it, but almost like it's like a car crash. Like you can't look away." -Grace Grace swims in her parent's pool.

“There is beauty in the moments of genuine anguish of feeling broken and reconciling with that and finding yourself all over again.” -Grace Grace rests in her bedroom. Daily activities easily tire her out and she spends a lot of time on her bed.

P is invisibly and dynamically disabled. Their capacity shifts, their pain migrates, and what they can do today may cost them tomorrow. They live with endometriosis, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, MCAS, fibromyalgia, migraines, centralized sensitization syndrome, PMDD, complex PTSD, ADHD, and autism, most of them conditions that disproportionately affect people with uteruses, and most of them severely underfunded, under-researched, and routinely dismissed. They have a patient advocate and a caregiver, because staying alive is more than a full-time job for someone too sick to work. They have spent years fighting doctors who told them it was probably just anxiety. They are what medicine calls a "zebra," a patient whose body doesn't follow the expected pattern, showing up to a system trained to look for horses. They recently started using a wheelchair. The wheelchair is also really painful. On good days, they come to the park to lie in the grass, to get fresh air and spaciousness from being stuck inside the house. They make phone calls here. Sometimes they make art. "Being disabled has made my world a lot smaller, but it's also expanded my coping skills around suffering and adversity. My comedy, creativity, and community have expanded to survive."

Lupita rehearses choreography with her friend Billy at a dance open studio session.

Lupita shares information about polycystic kidney disease with me at her monthly checkup with her primary care kidney doctor while her caretaker, Patty, sits in the background. A doctor has suggested a diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease, however it is difficult to get a consensus from multiple doctors.

Amaranta falls asleep with a paper towel over her eyes in the middle of a four-hour medical appointment for an orthoses fitting. To arrive when the office opened at 8 AM, Amaranta woke up at 5:00 a.m. to utilize "Access," a paratransit service known for its logistical unreliability to get to the Beverly Hills office from her home in Pomona.

An orthotist modifies the strap of Amaranta’s custom orthosis with help from his assistant to ensure it fits comfortably inside her shoe and doesnt cut into her leg on November 12, 2025. These braces stabilize her joints and support muscles affected by spina bifida and are essential for stability while walking. Documented with her consent, I accompanied her to a medical visit. Amaranta describes her life within the U.S. healthcare system as a "perpetual state of in-betweenness," where patients are often treated as liabilities rather than individuals. "I think sometimes I forget that my body is not just like this thing that’s outside of me that other people are trying to analyze and identify in a very clinical, distant way," she says.

A clinician grabs a bag of Lupita's daily medication to include in medical logs.

Lupita listens as her primary care doctor delivers rare good news: her kidney function has increased by 2%. Her doctor has monitored her kidney health for years, and while a 2% improvement sounds small by most measures, it gives her more time to avoid dialysis as a kidney transplant draws closer. For Lupita, it has given her much needed hope.

Amaranta rests in her bedroom surrounded by mobility aids, which also serves as her art studio on September 11, 2025. Due to economic constraints, limited accessibility in the housing market, and the difficulty of finding a job, she lives with her family and works for her father's business.

Amaranta waits in the front room at an orthotics clinic on November 12, 2025 to ensure she is the first patient of the day so she can be home by a reasonable time. To arrive by 8:00 AM, she woke up at 5:00 AM to account for the logistical unreliability of "Access," a curb-to-curb paratransit service. The visit required hours of waiting between minor adjustments for her orthoses, specialized braces that stabilize her joints and support the muscles affected by Spina Bifida. "To be the age (30) where it was supposed to be my cap... I was just like, oh, well, it’s really gonna go really downhill from here. That's what I always have in the back of my head." -Amaranta

Amaranta places Blue Lotus alongside handwritten strips of her medical timeline creating a mixed-media collage depicting kidneys, inspired by her fears for her declining health: "I'm worried about my kidneys," she shares on December 15, 2025 Explaining the presence of herbs and Blue Lotus; "[I am] Incorporating that remedy with my paint... I’m intentionally applying my action of creating... I hope it speeds up that process [of healing] somehow," she says. As an artist, she wanted to use the timeline of her clinical trauma (specifically records of a medication error that threatened her kidney function) as a way to have creative autonomy. She chose this public park to have her creative process documented.

"I’ve been reconnecting with trying to enrich and strengthen my spirit through everything that I’ve been through... as a way to, like, not think about how shitty my circumstances are," Amaranta says.