Long COVID Art Gallery

Dr. Michelle Lavoie (she/her) is a professional artist and curator, researcher, educator, and program developer. Her artmaking, curatorial practice, and arts-based, narrative, and community-based research is driven by her commitment to engage communities in creative, compelling and accessible ways to create dialogue and foster public understanding of complex issues. Her award-winning community art programs aim to support emerging artists and build resources and community resilience. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Queen’s) and Master of Fine Arts (Alberta), and Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies (Alberta). Michelle is a professional artist with 35+ years of international, national and regional exhibitions. Between 2015 and 2024, Michelle has curated several important public arts exhibitions to hold open safe, accessible, and engaging public spaces for previously silent stories to be seen and heard. A few significant exhibitions include: the Edmonton Queer History Project , Art Gallery of Alberta 2015: TREX Re-Imaging Normal for Alberta Foundation for the Arts that travelled to 22 venues (2018-20), viewership recorded at 51K; The 2SLGBTQ+ Intergenerational Art Project (2023-24), viewership estimated at 90K; Seeking Care: Imagining Alongside Youth Mental Health Stories (2024) viewership estimated at 60K. Michelle’s innovative work as a curator ties visual and narrative ways of thinking and knowing to mobilize community and research knowledge to support communities and educate publics.

Michelle Lavoie

Currator

3rd Canadian Symposium on Long COVID

James Sessford

This is my representation of how I see that the media, medical profession, and politicians/government have actively chosen to ignore COVID.

Living with LC- Episode 2: Coping with Anxiety, Fear, Loss, and Isolation

The experience of living with LC (and other chronic illnesses and disabilities) puts strains on one’s mental and emotional health as people navigate coping with anxiety (around health status, fear (of the unknown), loss (of self, occupation, identity, meaningful activity, purpose), and isolation (from previous relationships and community connections).

Brought to you by St. John's Rehab at Sunnybrook.

Living with LC- Episode 3: Navigating the (In)visibility of long COVID

LC has been conceptualized as an invisible disability due to its invisible symptoms and impairments (commonly, severe fatigue and brain fog) not visible to the eye. Like other invisible disabilities (e.g., anxiety, depression, chronic pain or fatigue, learning disabilities, etc.), people living with an invisible disability commonly experience perceived stigma that leads to discriminatory attitudes and practices across health and social care systems.

Brought to you by St. John's Rehab at Sunnybrook.

Living with LC- Episode 4: The Caregiving Experience

It is not just the person living with LC that experiences disruptions to their activities of daily living, occupational roles, leisure activities, social relationships, mental and emotional health, but also informal family caregivers who are often put into positions to support and care for their loved ones.

Brought to you by St. John's Rehab at Sunnybrook.

Living with LC- Episode 5: Finding Hope for the Future

People with LC and caregivers are in need of nurturing supportive healing spaces and practices as they navigate the unknowns and complexities of their LC care provisions. We hope this docuseries can inspire hope for a future that better acknowledges, supports, and cares for the LC community broadly.

Brought to you by St. John's Rehab at Sunnybrook.

2nd Canadian Symposium on Long COVID

Below are the submissions from the 2nd Canadian Symposium on Long COVID, held in 2024

Ann Fischer

I'm a photographer who documents the beauty around me as well as images that reflect how I feel on some of my darker days. I am attaching one of the latter for the symposium.

She is a pea inside a pod by Kathleen Yearwood

This was a lino cut I began during the early healing phase after 7 months of disability. I had a stool to sit on and I tried to work a little longer each time at cutting the design. It was hard but it helped me to have a project and a goal. I made several prints for a friends book. This is a star- nosed mole in her burrow. My friend titled it "She is a pea inside a pod"

C. longue by SZ

My experience of Long COVID, which in French is "COVID longue", is represented here by a concrete chaise longue. The chaise longue has been held as an icon of psychoanalysis; it is the chair on which the patient would lie down and be subjected to the therapist’s dissection. This captures my journey with Long COVID/COVID longue. I have been forced to lie on a cold, decrepit chaise longue and be scrutinized, pathologized and dehumanized for having real physical symptoms. My lived experience of this condition has been reduced to having a mental illness - one that comes with condescension and stigma, not support and empathy the way all mental illness should be treated.

Long COVID is not “all in our heads” as it has been proposed to be, and the individuals who live with it should not be forced to endure ridicule and judgement because of the lack of understanding about this condition. I refuse to lie on this chaise longue.

Wish Poem by Leeya Raj

This is a wish poem about a wish I held on to for the longest time. As I got sicker over time, I learned though emotions that wishes fade and grow. My wish was to go back to my old life and get back everything I lost, which faded over time, but never fully went away. I will always cherish the memories of my old self. I now know after living life with Long Covid for 4 years, that no matter how much I wish for my old life to come back to me, I have to live with the life I have now and that's okay.