Blood and Snow Manifesto is Louise’s intimate account of her journey through Stage 4 Lymphoma and disability.
It embraces themes of illness, trauma, loss, disability and mortality to explore how we construct subject/self based on our own experiences/choices and how those constructions are unavoidably influenced by the world around us. How permeable are we? How strong is our immunity to this often sick/dangerous world?
Is it possible to transform through suffering and loss, what is the difference between cure and healing? How does the long winter begin to turn to spring?
This is Louise’s praise poem to the wonder of the unique aesthetic and choreography of the adapted body. It is tribute to the extravagant beauty of inimitable form. It opens discourse on crip p/leisure, grants the witness permission to gaze, controls and redirects the ableist narrative by challenging, “you may look, but what you see will not be what you thought you would see”.
It is a preemptive swan song, lavish grief for our mortality, an attempt to assuage our fear of death.
She also shares a wee tale of divine intervention.
Specifically invited are persons with disabilities, illness, mental health issues.
Concept, visuals, text by Louise Westerhout
Editing by Anwar McWhite