Untitled (452.9 miles)
These are one of the pairs of shoes I trained in for my 200-mile race. They're red Hokas, and by the time I retired them they had 452.9 miles on them: early mornings, long runs, and stops to check my blood sugar. I couldn't throw them away.
I build sculptures from recycled running shoes and medical waste, and this is one of many. I have Type 1 diabetes, so what carries me through a race isn't only my legs and my shoes. It's needles, insulin, and sensors, a layer of artificial support that keeps my natural body going. Nobody sees that part at the finish line. For this piece, I filled both shoes with my own used needles until they bristled. Something made to cushion and carry me became something sharp, and both are true. Like the shoes, everything I use to stay alive wears out and gets replaced.
I filmed the building in the most ordinary setting I could: sitting on a yoga block, foam roller behind me, sipping lemon water. That's a wink at the wellness industry, which loves to suggest the right habits can fix a body. I'm a yin yoga teacher, so I believe in stillness as much as I believe in ultrarunning, and my body needs both. Neither cures a chronic illness. The United Nations hat is not a joke. I believe in people building systems of care and cooperation, and that belief is why I make art in service of my community.
What this piece means to me is the waste. Medical advances keep arriving, and I'm glad for them, but they are treatments, not cures, and every treatment leaves a trail: needles, sensors, packaging, an endless stream of disposable objects for a lifetime of managing one disease. Every needle in these shoes is mine, and together they show what it looks like when the cycle continues instead of ending. I want people to see that pile, feel the discomfort, and ask what it would mean to build toward a cure instead.
