Megan Bent is an artist who explores disability aesthetics, culture, and identity through alternative process photography, film, and installation. Her artwork has been exhibited widely across the United States and she is currently an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s 2021 Art + Disability Residency. Her work has been featured in Analog Forever Magazine, Rfotofolio, Color Tag Magazine, Fraction Magazine, Float Photography Magazine, and Too Tired Project.

In March of 2020, my fear of catching the Coronavirus became palpable. “Don’t worry,” an acquaintance assured me “only the sick and elderly will die.” I am chronically ill and immunocompromised. I Don’t Want To Paint A Silver Lining Around It is my personal reflection of being high risk in the pandemic. It is also my response to the outside world’s demand that disabled people be acceptable losses for personal convenience or for corporate profit.

Through chlorophyll printing, which uses UV light to print photographic images directly onto leaves, I connect disability and nature to undermine stereotypical representations of disability as tragic and reframe it as a valuable part of human diversity.

The chlorophyll printing process (where one print/exposure may take anywhere from 8- 72 hours) relies on flexibility, interdependence with nature, and echos my experience of the disability concept of Crip Time, living in a body/mind that values slowing down, connection, and care over speed and production.

The fact that chlorophyll prints are impermanent, and will continue to decay over time, asks the viewer to confront the interdependence and bodily impermanence we all share.

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