I had been to Philadelphia only once before, in 2019, when I stopped by to visit a friend on my way to a residency in Massachusetts. My friend was in medical school at the time. Needless to say, I barely saw her. I spent those four days visiting museums, galleries, and various landmarks mostly on my own. Now that I’ve seen the city twice at different times of the year and for different purposes, I can safely say that Philadelphia’s vibe strikes me as perfect for a history buff or a goth. There’s a reason why Edgar Allan Poe did his best work in Philly!
I ended up in Philly again three weeks ago for a health humanities conference at Thomas Jefferson University. The events that led to this began last summer when I gave a lecture/workshop to a group of medical students at UC Davis via Zoom. The course professor, Jesse, suggested proposing a conference panel to discuss the outcomes of the class. His proposal was accepted, and he invited all of us to participate including the students and three other guest artists.
I don’t write about every trip; I usually take pictures or sketch instead. But this one was different. In less than a week, I experienced so many reflections, ideas, and connections, that I felt the need to write them all down before the memories disappeared. Photos alone weren’t enough.
The conference took place in hybrid format, both in person and online. I expected to participate online until I found out that Oakton College—the school where I’ve been teaching part-time for the past nineteen years—would reimburse me for most of the flight and hotel. Before I left Chicago, I met up with my friend Dawn, a fellow artist and recent transplant from Philly. She gave me lots of tips and locations to check out. I took detailed notes.
I was able to book a discounted room in Center City where I stockpiled food for the next five days. On my walk to the grocery store, I noticed that all of the fruit trees happened to be in bloom that week.
Our panel was on the very first day and time slot of the conference. Only two of us were participating in person, me and the course professor Jesse, and we met up for tea before the panel. He mentioned that he took up painting again only in the last couple of weeks, for the first time in ages. I speculated that our class probably influenced him, but he expressed skepticism due to the time lapse; almost a year had passed since the class took place. I remembered a similar experience of my own after finishing the book Phenomenology of Perception. The ideas weren’t exceptionally relevant to my process, but they suddenly appeared in my work nearly four years later. Things sometimes take time to percolate.
Right before our panel, I entered the conference lobby to check in, and was amused by the variety of giveaways from the conference and its sponsors. Strewn on cloth-covered tables were tote bags, ceramic mugs, notepads, tiny notebooks, hand sanitizers, pens, zippered cases of utensils including stainless steel chopsticks and drinking straws with tiny pipe cleaners, magnetic clips, 3-way device chargers, various brochures, cards, booklets. I took one of each, and then wondered if this behavior was socially acceptable, realizing that my upbringing probably had something to do with it. In precarious circumstances, one never passes up things that are free.
The panel discussion was supposed to be a basic recap of what we already talked about in class last summer, but the participating students revealed some shocking new things that nearly brought me to tears. One student said that she was ready to quit medicine until she reconnected with it through drawing. Another student described how much my ink workshop challenged him—but not in the way that either of us had anticipated. At first, he felt disappointed that the ink didn’t behave predictably, showing us a beautiful blue inkblot that covered the entire sheet of paper. He clarified that he expected to see something much more contained when he unfolded the paper. This in turn made him emotionally reflect on how rigid expectations can prevent curiosity, creativity, and openness in places where they are needed most. At this moment, I realized that my ink exercise walked students through challenges similar to my own experience with ink over the years. I accidentally created a contradiction by prescribing each step: how much water to prepare, the number of ink droplets to use, when to apply them and in what sequence to perform each action. This created a false sense of control that vanished when the ink began flowing across the paper.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t pause and reflect on what just happened. Immediately after our panel, I had a meeting scheduled at the Mütter Museum. As I was getting ready to leave, someone walked up to say hello. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t recall how I knew him until he introduced himself. He was a doctor whom I had met nearly fifteen years ago at the University of Chicago where he occasionally curates exhibitions of items from the library collection. I apologized for staring at him during the panel. We chatted a bit about art and medicine before I hurried to catch the next bus to the Mütter. I have to say, I was impressed by Philadelphia’s efficient transit system. It was a breath of fresh air (only figuratively) after all of the waiting around in Chicago. To be fair, Philadelphia is nowhere near as sprawled out.
Walking down into the guts of the Mütter felt somehow special despite the fact that the corridors were unremarkable—with the exception of the occasional strange choice of wall color or detailed medical print. The experience of going “backstage” in a museum always feels forbidden, especially when that space is located below the exhibitions. As an artist who spent two years at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, I knew that I would connect with the Mütter someday. The museum has received a lot of flak in recent years for their collection of human remains, and they’ve handled the criticism well; I think of the Mütter as one of those culturally fraught zones that generates difficult conversations, reflecting the changes in our society. This is why I love it. Without spaces like these, difficult topics are either ignored or brushed under the rug. The museum confronts mainstream perceptions of death, bodies, artifacts, language, identity, medicine, health, consent, and the role of museums in general, even as each of these has multiple views depending on whom you ask.
That same evening, after a spread of hors d’oeuvres, the Mütter hosted a keynote lecture for the conference, Catacombs of Science: Human Remains Collections in the 19th Century and Today. It was followed by a discussion regarding the museum’s Postmortem Project, addressing ethical questions with regard to human remains. One audience member commented that since we don’t bring flowers or chant at the museum, she didn’t understand why the remains needed to be real—why they couldn’t be replicas. I was at once moved and mortified by her comment. The idea of replicas felt wrong to me. It was a visceral reaction, and I’m not sure if it was justified or if she was right. Ultimately, I think replicas would remove the heartbreaking authenticity of the permanent collection, turning the museum into a simulation of itself, an amusement park of sorts. The last thing we need is more simulations. I guess I assume that most people approach human remains with contemplation and respect, not indifference.
Lots of thoughts crossed my mind at this point. I remembered an evocative book by Robert Pogue Harrison titled The Dominion of the Dead, where he discusses how the dead remain among the living and how we are positioned between those who have already passed and those who are yet to be born, among many other topics. Also, in just the past couple of months, I experienced a strange sequence of events trying to procure my own femoral head from a hospital after I had hip replacement surgery. This included the pathology department’s suggestion to go through a funeral home for paperwork because my own hip bone technically belongs in the “human remains” category.
After the keynote event was over, three of us walked back together to our respective hotels in the evening rain, including a person with an Australian accent (I wish I could remember her name) and Jesse. I told them the story about how I ultimately did acquire my hip bone from the hospital in Chicago after a lengthy, convoluted process. Jesse seemed surprised and suggested that I could publish the story as a journal article.
As with most conferences, there were multiple sessions to choose from in any given hour. All the recent talk about death inspired me to attend a workshop titled Death Panels: Exploring Dying and Death Through Comics, also because one of the facilitators happened to be that same doctor who approached me after our panel. As a common warm-up exercise, they asked us to create a blind contour drawing of the person sitting next to us. It was fun—I hadn’t done one of those in over a decade. Then they instructed us to draw a rectangle on a large index card and fill it with a drawing of what we might imagine a “good death” to look like. I immediately began cycling through questions in my mind: Whose good death? From what point of view? Is there a timeframe? The very moment of death, or death as a process? My idea of a “good death” might not sound good to others. I realized that I couldn’t speak for anyone else, which meant that I had to draw my own death. Then I wondered whose point of view it was going to be—who was doing the looking? An unidentified entity above me in the room? I decided that it needed to be a first-person view. I drew a pair of peacefully closed eyes as experienced from the inside.
Next, they asked us to take another index card and draw what happened right before the good death. I immediately imagined the same point of view with eyes open. I drew a shape resembling a field of vision and began adding images of loved ones huddled together within a couple of feet of me, smiling at me. This was taking too long—I ran out of time. Finally, on the last index card, they asked us to draw what happened right after the good death. I intentionally left that card blank, which gave me enough time to go back and finish the other card.
Many of the conference sessions had over-the-top academic titles, including the panel I was on. I’m not sure which one of these takes the cake, but here are some fun examples:
Catapulted into the World of the Ill: Crafting Performance Autoethnography
Little Invisible: On Imagining and Imaging Expectancy
Building Bridges: Photovoice as a Methodology for Caring with Others
Confronting Subjectivity: Humanistic Interventions in Psychiatric Education
Queering the Narrative of Medical Training: Designing a Collective Role-Playing Game as Resistance to Institutionalized Apathy
…and our own panel:
Drawing Observations in Medicine: Perspectives from a Prolonged, Protected Exposure to Art in Medical School
I attended several sessions besides the one on death. Many of them moved me in several ways, one literally so: the facilitator had us do some dance moves to the Jamiroquai song Canned Heat before discussing how those who provide access to dance can be re-characterized as healthcare workers, and the various problems and benefits that may arise from such labeling. Another interesting panel laid out the differences between traditional medical humanities and critical medical humanities. Yet another presenter discussed psychiatric drug refusal and how sometimes patients prefer living with a particular disability over the consequences of accepting a specific medication or other treatment. There was a lot to process, a lot to think about. The conference was overwhelmingly stimulating.
Two of the conference days had built-in lunch programs. During one of them, I gathered a plate of fancy buffet selections including baked salmon and vegetables, and sat at one of many round tables covered by blue plastic tablecloths. Soon after, I was joined by Jesse and someone who had attended our panel. She was curious about one of our slides—we had posed a question to ourselves: Did the art course at UC Davis influence us or change our career directions? This question was especially relevant to the medical students in the class, some of whom were inspired enough to continue making and thinking about art. A few people answered during the panel, including Jesse, who described his recent return to painting. Over lunch, the person sitting next to me asked if the class somehow changed me or entered my work at all. I paused to think—I wasn’t sure how to answer. Watching me pause, she added that it was okay to say no, but that sincerely wasn’t my answer. I told her that I’m influenced by everything. It may have sounded hokey but it was not an exaggeration. Jesse commented, and I paraphrase, that all of life seems to be fodder for my work. It’s true. I think this is pretty common among artists.
Just as we were finishing our meals, an artist approached the microphone in the lunchroom and began giving workshop instructions. This was a plenary event in a large hall with at least fifty people present. He told us to begin focusing on one of our traumas or wounds, physical or emotional, and to draw it with the materials provided on each table. We were to then use a brush to coat our drawing with the yellowish-brown Betadine (iodine) antiseptic solution. The room got quiet as people began drawing their respective traumas. I sat there stunned; I didn’t know what to draw. Of course I’ve experienced traumas, as everyone has, but none of them feel like traumas anymore. They exist in my memory as experiences, learning moments, transformations. Anything I could think of somehow felt petty and navel-gazing at this point in time, and I couldn’t bring myself to draw it. Maybe I’ve processed my traumas? Maybe he caught me at a bad time—and by bad, I mean good? I felt alienated by this situation. Staring off into space, I was surrounded by a large crowd of people with their heads down, quietly drawing. I excused myself from the table and awkwardly tiptoed out.
I fell asleep early that evening, sadly missing the social hour at the Museum of the American Revolution where hors d’oeuvres were served alongside a cash bar and two theatrical presentations of George Washington’s war tent.
The next day I decided to see some art. With limited time and so many shows to choose from, I opted for the Institute of Contemporary Art. They had an intriguing survey exhibition titled Nature Never Loses by Carl Cheng. It turned out to be a strange and mesmerizing show of installations that pulsed and emitted light. Wires emanated from encased objects; 3D maps were imprinted in a field of sand; an otherworldly landscape model spun inside something that looked like an iron lung, parts of which lit up on command by a set of foot pedals; water rushed through dimly lit dioramas; unusual collections of almost recognizable “tools” sat in vitrines; a life-size greenhouse stored rows of organic forms… Photographs and sculptures filled the first gallery near the entrance, but things just got weirder and weirder as one stepped deeper into the exhibition. The building was filled with Cheng’s work on both levels. The show evoked the curiosity and subtle fear felt upon encountering the unknown, resembling a natural history museum with its specimens and narratives.
I was completely blown away and haunted by this show. It was both accessible and impenetrable, hilarious and scary, clear and disorienting at the same time. The best way to follow this up would be to visit an actual natural history museum. I looked at my list of venues and decided to look up the hours of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, a mid-19th Century cabinet of curiosities in North Central Philadelphia. It turns out that the museum was relatively remote and would require a half hour bus ride, so I saved it for the following day and went back for more conference sessions instead.
The following morning, I took a bus to West Philadelphia again, this time to meet with Dan Blacksberg, a brilliant trombonist I met at a residency in Wyoming in 2014. Sitting on the bus I scrolled through his website, amused to find out that he has played with metal bands like The Body and Liturgy. As soon as I hopped off the bus, I found myself in Spruce Hill, a quaint residential neighborhood lined by old trees that were only beginning to bud. It was a cloudy, damp Saturday morning. A few blocks later I arrived at our meeting place—an idyllic park that hosted a small farmers’ market—and spotted Dan and his wife with a child in a stroller. We wandered around the park together in a light rain and talked about life while the little girl ate an apple from one of the market vendors. A donut machine churned out fresh, sizzling rings of dough. Children laughed while swinging in the playground. Vendors sold bouquets of colorful flowers. Over the course of the morning, several of Dan’s friends happened to cross paths with us and say hello. For a brief moment, the rain turned into a torrential downpour and all three of us huddled under my umbrella, engulfed by the sound. It was lovely to see Dan and to meet his family.
My next destination was the Wagner Free Institute of Science. Back in Center City, I took a crowded bus to the Cecil B. Moore neighborhood in North Philadelphia and walked under a row of flowering fruit trees to find the crumbling old Victorian building that housed the collection of rocks, bones, insects, shells, and taxidermied animals.
Despite having only one level, the collection was enormous and absolutely overwhelming. The antique glass vitrines looked frozen in time, with yellowing name tags and fragments of disintegrating specimens accumulating at the bottom of each case. Most memorable for me were the mastodon fossils and the gorgeously detailed papier-mâché models of mushrooms from the 1860s made by Dr. Auzoux. I got there about an hour before they closed and was able to see only about half of the collection at most. (I skipped the bugs.) Several of the specimens spurred ideas, but I couldn’t document them—no photography was allowed and I didn’t bring my sketchbook. Next time I visit Philadelphia, I am definitely bringing a sketchbook to the Wagner Institute. For now, here is an image from their website:
I also visited a couple of gallery districts that same Saturday afternoon. I went to the Vox building to see several artist-run shows, and met a couple of absolutely delightful people at Vox Populi. We bantered for about half an hour before exchanging cards, when I suddenly had that American-Psycho-business-card-envy moment—their handmade cards were so beautiful! Lane had a laminated not-quite-square photocopy with encased glitter and confetti while Aaron’s card was hand printed on reused cardstock with angle-cut and rounded corners.
At 4:30am, I checked out of my hotel room and walked to the nearest train station. It was time to go home. The night was dark and misty and I was sleepy, pulling my carry-on bag behind me. The streets were empty. This is when I shot the photo of the clock tower at the top of this page. At 16th Street and Kennedy Blvd, I descended down the dark stairs to find the Suburban Train Station entrance locked. Then I tried the main entrance at street level—that one was locked as well, and no one was around. I just stood there in the dark, alone, tired and slightly panicked, without a soul in sight. I knew that the train was coming in the next ten minutes. A rideshare would take too long. I haven’t taken one in years. I was already at the station. How was this possible? I searched for an answer online, and in a random forum I found a thread that claimed only the entrance at 17th Street—a block away—would be open before 5am on a Sunday. Luckily it was. And I caught the train the moment it pulled up into the station. We rattled for thirty minutes towards the airport.
At the terminal, a person placed her bags next to mine and disappeared down the hall with her water bottle. Just as I unwrapped my final rations of cheese and crackers, everyone around me began shuffling and talking about a gate change. I decided to stay for a little while. That same person with the water bottle was confused to see a deserted gate upon her return. I pointed at the screen above us and tried mumbling through a mouthful of crackers. She asked if I had traveled to Philly for the occupational therapy conference and I misheard her and nodded, not realizing that there was more than one conference taking place at the same time.
The new flight gate was much nicer, with rows of tall chairs facing each other along a single narrow table. The seat across from the person I saw earlier was open, so I approached her and apologized for talking with my mouth full. It turns out that she teaches occupational therapy at the same university in the Chicago suburbs where my friend Dawn, whom I mentioned earlier, teaches art. I learned the true difference between occupational therapy and physical therapy. We shared notes on our respective conferences. The time passed quickly.
It was still early in the morning when the aircraft departed. Back home in Chicago, I took the blue line train and arrived home before noon.
Home felt new. This is how I know that an experience has changed me.
