Dana Henry Martin

Human Rights

  • Hard Pills

    I have a new iteration on my concept of collecting soil samples from mass-institutionalization-era psychiatric asylums and hospitals in the… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    2–3 minutes

  • Other(ed) Ancestors

    As part of my dif/Fused Ancestry project, I also want to collect soil from every asylum in the United States… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    1–2 minutes

  • Utah State Mental Health Hospital

    Here are some of the reasons a person could be committed to the state psychiatric hospital in Utah around the… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    1–2 minutes

  • Coerced Treatment

    Matthew Yglesias today, on the heels of the July 24 executive order and its implementation in states like Utah: …… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    1–2 minutes

  • The Order

    I want to talk about the concentration camp being built in Utah, where I live, that will warehouse people who… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    2–3 minutes

  • Worthless Words

    These are photos of the sculpture at Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri, that I incorporated into a poem… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    1–2 minutes

  • Frictions

    “Nothing about us without us.” That’s a guiding principle in the disability-rights movement. It applies to the mental-health justice and… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    5–8 minutes

  • Documenting Social Death

    There’s a lot happening in this paragraph from Shuko Tamao’s “Picturing the Institution of Social Death: Visual Rhetorics of Postwar… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    1–2 minutes

  • ‘Socially Dead’ Others

    Disability researcher Shuko Tamao on using photos of patients in an attempt to bring about reform in postwar asylums in… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    1–2 minutes

  • Pinfeathers

    There are some things you can’t show, things you can’t share once you’ve seen them, so you turn them into… Read more.

    Dana Henry Martin
    2–3 minutes

PROCESS

  • Map and Research: Investigate the historical, geological, and ecological context of each collection site or reverse the direction, mapping sites based on ancestral and historical narratives.
  • Forage: Gather natural materials ethically, respectfully, and with permission.
  • Transform: Process foraged materials into custom mediums and physical resources for art-making.
  • Weave: Track the stories held within the land, braiding personal, ancestral, and ecological histories.
  • Create: Generate studies and finished artwork informed by the sites and physically composed of the materials collected.

  • Limits: Not all sites will be safe or accessible, which means some spaces cannot be entered, and some stories will remain incomplete. An empty container can signify these omissions.

purpose

ethics

Responsible Exploration: Committing to mindful presence, permission-based foraging, and minimal-impact exploration on every site.

Meaning

Embodied Storytelling: Engaging in sensory, place-based creation that connects the maker and viewer to the specific location and to the physical earth.

Reclamation: Unearthing and honoring lost, fractured, or overlooked histories embedded in the landscape.

Material Transformation: Celebrating the alchemy of turning raw, gathered earth into tangible, expressive art.

community

Public Education: Sharing the ecological and historical narratives of the sites to foster a deeper collective awareness.

Active Participation: Creating opportunities for community participation, engagement, and shared connection through the work.