My overall art practice is about exploring anything that intrigues me, challenging questions or interesting observations. I’m driven by a curiosity about the world around me and find joy in learning more about the world around me and about myself. I have used various media in my practice including graphic design, creative writing, DJing and collage. In recent years, my practice often aims to examine the violence inherent in medical practice and bring this into conversation with imaginings of liberation.

During the Luminous Bodies art residency, I plan to explore reflections that emerge in my practice as a family doctor though the medium of collage. Lately I’m reflecting about the patient-physician encounter of a medical appointment, a routine part of my work. While it is routine for me, it is not necessarily routine for the patient. In fact, as someone who is at times a patient, it can be quite an extraordinary occasion with great consequences for everyone involved. The patient-physician encounter is many things, including a location of power imbalance, of body objectification and of systemic oppression manifesting at the individual level. What kind of bodies are created during the patient-physician encounter and what is the relationship of these bodies to the patient? What else can we imagine of the body beyond the limits of the medical gaze? I am informed by a healing justice framework as I explore these questions and topics through collage.

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Dr. Cindy Ochieng (she/her) is a Black queer woman who plays, lives and works on the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Métis, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, so called Toronto, Canada. She has been employed as a family doctor since 2020. Dr. Ochieng completed medical school at Dalhousie University and her family medicine residency at McMaster University. In addition to graduate studies in anthropology and public health, her background includes training in audio production, music and creative writing. Storytelling is of particular interest to her given its ability to contextualize the present and imagine the future where liberation is concerned.