Demonized - Series

This series discusses the othering and social stigmas of disability, chronic illness, and mental health issues.



Demonized is about the othering and social stigmas of disability, chronic illness, and mental health. For this series I pulled from multiple symbolic sources to illustrate the narrative of being "othered". The horns come from caricatures of Jews in Nazi propaganda, referencing my own Jewish identity and heritage, and how my people, both the disabled and the Jews, were culturally othered, depicted as sub-human. I often see gross parallels in modern "inspirational" articles, and modern sentiments towards the disabled, that were in Nazi propaganda against the Jews and the disabled. The figure sits at a table with a symbolic last supper. With the bread I pulled from wheat and grain symbolism to represent fertility, as the wheat has become bread, this fertility has come to fulfillment in the creation of a child. The disabled are often stigmatized for having children, as we are thought of as inadequate parents because we can't give our children "normal" parents. The apple is the poisoned apple of fairytales, that for just being who we are, society wants to eradicate our presence. The inside of the apple bleeds, representing the grave costs of stigmatization. The figure stares at a cauldron, which contains the feast before us, and waits for the offerings to burn down, their strength and resilience in the face of oppression.