Sarah Prescott

Greenport, United States

Artist's Statement:
The bicycle photo essay started 9 years ago. It started out of my frustration of my bike being stolen many times. How many of us have locked up a bike only to come back and find a tire missing, or the whole thing gone and only a mangled lock remaining?

As the project evolved it took on a new meaning. In 1997 I started becoming sick. Since then I've had 5 major operations and now a stroke. The project changed with my changes. It became a part of me, I could relate to the bikes lying there, helpless and wounded, with their parts taken away, Every time I was opened up and another part taken from me, I felt like the bikes. I felt invaded, violated and the bikes expressed that.

Now I've had a stroke and have aphasia, a permanent speech language problem. Again my world changes. So does the project. My name is Sarah Prescott I'm a white girl with freckles. I'm forced to live in a world of welfare, Medicaid and disability. In a system where people get overlooked on a daily basis, I'm like the bikes. How many of these bikes do we walk by and not notice? Decisions about my health are not made by me. I'm cast aside, left to decay.

The photo essay is really about feeling abandoned, left behind and overlooked. In a sense it is my autobiography. It is a story about my struggle, survival and how I will fit in with my new disability. Expressing myself is my disability; the bikes express how I feel.