After Impact

Visual poetry display about brain injury on at White Box at Fringe HQ from April 27 - May 16th.

In 2014 Claire Lacey experienced a life-altering concussion while playing roller derby. After Impact explores the sensory distortion and anxiety of living with head injury. The poem is sublimated ink on organza fabric. As the fabric moves, it mimics blurred vision, dizziness, and difficulty with communication.

The delicate, transparent fabric represents fragility and vulnerability. The crooked lines of the poem invite the viewer to adust their body in reaction to the text, echoing the left tilt Claire experienced as a result of a change to her balance and perception of her body in space. At the bottom, the letters of Claire’s roller derby name, Sparkle Motion, are heaped with the letters of her given name, both identities left in ruin.

Claire Lacey is currently working towards a PhD on poetry and brain injury at Te Whare Wānanga o Ōtākou / University of Otago. After Impact is a piece of that project.