John Killacky is an artist, filmmaker, arts administrator, and politician whose work explores the challenges of navigating the world in a disabled body. In 1996, Killacky had surgery to remove a tumor from his spinal cord and initially woke from the procedure a quadriplegic. With intensive rehab, today he is paraplegic with lingering neuropathic pain. Adding to his condition, an accidental fall in 2021 resulted in a fractured fibula. Since then, Killacky has been living with intense chronic pain. After exploring various treatments (Reiki, acupuncture, and other body work), Killacky started to understand his pain in terms of managing energy fields.
Killacky explains, “My body is not balanced. My brain doesn’t know I have a left leg and I have no sensation in my right leg. During one of my treatments, suddenly I felt my body in balance—with energy surging into my dormant left side. The therapist said it’s called the ‘stillpoint.’ It’s very elusive. If you’re a meditator, it is the point when your body becomes fluid. Ever since that moment, I knew I wanted to do a piece about the liminality of stillpoint, grasping for equilibrium.”
As part of his collaboration with the FWM Studio, Killacky created fragments of a burial shroud, a body’s final soft covering before decomposition. The artist burned his own likeness into one while a video is projected onto the other. Using treated latex as an unstable medium, Killacky intends for the pieces to appear tattered as unearthed, decaying relics.
To accompany these works, Killacky also had four statements stenciled into strips of burlap, which were sewn together and displayed on the floor in the nearby corner. Collectively, they serve as guidance for coping with trauma in the body:
“Dissolve expectations”
“Observe without judgment”
“Surrender into ease”
“Learn from the body”
