31 Recipe For Community – Simia Love
Image Description: This image depicts a typed recipe for community surrounded by a 3-part decorative collage. The collage includes photographs of a baker’s hands surrounded by various baking supplies and pastries in the top-left corner; a heart-shaped tin surrounded by small red, pink, and white heart-shaped candies in the top-right corner; various houses with colourful rooftops in front of a body of water in the bottom-left corner; and two unidentified people working in a garden with several baskets of what appear to be apples, nuts, and herbs in the bottom-right. The text is below.
Start by adding 1 drop of love.
This is to make sure that the base of the recipe is bounded by the hope that comes with unconditional love.
Add ½ a cup of expectations mixed with ½ a cup of acceptance.
Add 3 ½ tablespoons of courage; this will allow the acceptance to grow.
Add 1 cup of communication & 1 cup of collaboration.
Stir well to ensure the most inclusive results. While adding a dash of creativity- to include the mist inclusive results.
My recipe calls for 2 cups more of resilience because it may be harder to sustain or create a disability community in able-bodied environments.
Then make sure to mix all the ingredients in a stable and supportive environment.
Pour out the mixture into one unique tin for the most equal and extraordinary outcomes.
Bake with your eyes and your heart wide open at 350 degrees for 30 minutes
Take the pastry out when you can feel the warmth steaming from the core and serve it both boldly and with courage.
Artist Statement
My main goals in creating my art have been to sustain a sense of community and to promote confidence among those who are marginalized at McMaster University and the outside world. Even while I’m hopeful about university, I can’t hide the intense loneliness and grief I’ve experienced over the past few years—experiences that have made my disability limitations worse. This experience has motivated me to dive into these two poems with an intensity that is equal parts faith and spirit for passion towards artistic expressions and deeply rooted pain.
As a disabled student, I have experienced many moments of marginalization, discouragement, and invisibility along my path. Art provides me with a deep emotional release, enabling me to express my feelings and share them with others, consequently communicating their importance and influence of advocacy hopefully onto others. I tried to hold onto hope in the past and continue to try to hold onto hope in the present as a disabled student, and disability related community has given me both comfort, understanding, and motivation.
I used ingredients within one of my art pieces to make a recipe for a strong community. This “recipe” represents the various traits that could make up a community that supports students with disabilities in a proactive manner. This recipe is both a hypothetical community scenario and dream for me as something I would like to see in practice. In the recipe I propose adding a drop of love because I believe love to be very strong in the sense that every little bit goes a long way and is a necessary ingredient while building a community.