One requirement of students in a course called Nursing Concepts and Illness Experience within the Trent/Fleming BScN Program was to visually represent their understanding of an illness related concept. Students were to consider the empiric, ethical, aesthetic and personal ways of knowing (Chinn & Kramer, 1999). The work of four students is presented here. Rehabilitation is portrayed as a journey over a mountain, beginning with a shattered self image and leading to an intact, but different self image. Challenges are represented by charred and blood stained steps and a leap of faith. The roles of social support, hope and hardiness are represented by people in community along the path, a light within the mountain and a warrior figure at the top of the mountain respectively. (18 x 18 x 18 inches, multimedia) Fear is portrayed by a fallen, stark white figure lost on a white background, and isolated by an invisible barrier. The poem that accompanied this work is included below. (8 x10 x 8 inches, glass and clay) The pain that is experienced by those who are ill and those who suffer with them is portrayed in a bedroom scene. Viewers can interpret the aspects of total pain experienced by each of the characters. Like the rest of the world, the dog sleeps on, oblivious to the suffering nearby. (10 x 10 inches, clay and felt) Finally, wellbeing and illness are depicted through a pair of forms, one of which is intact, and the other with holes in the head and heart, body and soul. (6 x 6 x 6 inches, clay)
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