A Vehicle for Change
Vehicle for Change is a prototype for an ecological, chemically safe mobile home.
Since the end of WWII a gazillion new molecules have been released into our environment and entered our bodies. It’s one of the fastest changes to our habitat in human history. Although we know some of these substances are outright poisons, 95% of the chemicals in circulation have never been tested to find out what they could do to our bodies or our world. In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control tested the blood of a broad sample of the U.S. public to screen for 148 toxic chemicals: almost everyone had almost all of them. All this exposure is changing some of our bodies. We get sensitized, and start reacting to everything. It’s called environmental illness or MCS, and at least 35 million people in the U.S. have it. Unregulated chemicals in our environment are causing a public health crisis.
They're also causing a housing crisis. Indoor air quality is often far more toxic than outdoor air, even in heavily polluted areas. Household chemicals and conventional construction materials and furnishings outgas toxic fumes that disrupt our hormones and nervous systems, cause birth defects, cancer and asthma. 60% of environmentally ill people in a nationwide study had experienced homelessness, lived in tents or cars, or been forced to stay in homes that made them seriously ill. In 2010, I became one of them.
Mold in the structure of my apartment building, and fumes from a laundry room that vented opposite my front door, made me violently ill. I left my home of fourteen years overnight, and spent months living in offices and living rooms, looking for a home I could tolerate. Like me, people with EI often spend years and thousands of dollars adapting homes that they end up walking away from. Sometime during that difficult summer, it occurred to me that I wanted a home I could take with me, so that I could move wherever I wanted, and the time, money and effort I invested in making a chemically safe sanctuary could come with me. A non-toxic home on wheels. I also wanted to create a model of what's possible: a home that's portable, healthy, and ecological.
I spent the next year designing it. It has a part electrical and part gasoline engine and runs household appliances on solar power. There's a composting toilet, a hydroponic indoor garden and a solar oven. The wiring is EMF shielded, and it's built of non-toxic materials like metal, ceramic tile and hardwood. It has state of the art green technology, including super-efficient appliances, and old fashioned energy-savers like a cool box and root cellar. It's going to be my home, my means of travel and a prototype for what I hope will become an affordable, sustainable, safe housing option for many others. Then I'm going to set out on a journey.
They're also causing a housing crisis. Indoor air quality is often far more toxic than outdoor air, even in heavily polluted areas. Household chemicals and conventional construction materials and furnishings outgas toxic fumes that disrupt our hormones and nervous systems, cause birth defects, cancer and asthma. 60% of environmentally ill people in a nationwide study had experienced homelessness, lived in tents or cars, or been forced to stay in homes that made them seriously ill. In 2010, I became one of them.
Mold in the structure of my apartment building, and fumes from a laundry room that vented opposite my front door, made me violently ill. I left my home of fourteen years overnight, and spent months living in offices and living rooms, looking for a home I could tolerate. Like me, people with EI often spend years and thousands of dollars adapting homes that they end up walking away from. Sometime during that difficult summer, it occurred to me that I wanted a home I could take with me, so that I could move wherever I wanted, and the time, money and effort I invested in making a chemically safe sanctuary could come with me. A non-toxic home on wheels. I also wanted to create a model of what's possible: a home that's portable, healthy, and ecological.
I spent the next year designing it. It has a part electrical and part gasoline engine and runs household appliances on solar power. There's a composting toilet, a hydroponic indoor garden and a solar oven. The wiring is EMF shielded, and it's built of non-toxic materials like metal, ceramic tile and hardwood. It has state of the art green technology, including super-efficient appliances, and old fashioned energy-savers like a cool box and root cellar. It's going to be my home, my means of travel and a prototype for what I hope will become an affordable, sustainable, safe housing option for many others. Then I'm going to set out on a journey.
Vehicle for Change is a research vessel.
As I travel the country, I will be investigating a multi-layered story about my own body, with its illness and injury, resilience and deep knowledge. I'll probe my medical genealogy, the ecology of my childhood in rural Puerto Rico, urban Manhattan and Chicago, and the environmental causes of my own and other people's illnesses, study the histories of epidemics and industrial hazards, health cooperatives and medical monopolies, the toxicity of capitalism and the healing powers of solidarity, and look from many angles at the consequences, as individuals, communities, whole societies, of our disconnection from the natural world.
I'll visit places of wild beauty and polluted wastelands, and talk to researchers on the health effects of pesticides, indigenous environmentalists, urban farmers, community health workers, traditional healers, residents of poisoned landscapes, environmental justice activists, patients and practitioners in the Cuban health care system, and participants in the emerging healing justice movement.
We are living in a time of great peril for the future of life on earth, and drawing forth the connections between our own bodies and personal stories, and the greater story of the ailing planet is one way to awaken people to action. I will also document my explorations in writing, photography, artwork and video, so they can travel beyond me.
I'll visit places of wild beauty and polluted wastelands, and talk to researchers on the health effects of pesticides, indigenous environmentalists, urban farmers, community health workers, traditional healers, residents of poisoned landscapes, environmental justice activists, patients and practitioners in the Cuban health care system, and participants in the emerging healing justice movement.
We are living in a time of great peril for the future of life on earth, and drawing forth the connections between our own bodies and personal stories, and the greater story of the ailing planet is one way to awaken people to action. I will also document my explorations in writing, photography, artwork and video, so they can travel beyond me.
Vehicle for Change is an incubator for social justice art.
Along the way, I will stop to be an artist-in-residence for communities and organizations dealing with any of the many aspects of environmental health. I'll give public readings of my work and talk about my research. I'll offer writing workshops, story gathering circles, and workshops to explore the family and historical roots of illness and health. I'll invite workshop participants to post their stories on my web site, and seek out collaborations with local artists to create public art about health and ecology.
I will also practice and refine my own artistic skills, learn from other socially committed artists, explore new techniques and expand my toolbox for creating cultural change. The human imagination is one of the most powerful forces on earth. That which we can imagine, we can build. Socially committed art is one of the most effective ways to free our imaginations, to turn all that creative power toward the common good, toward designing and building societies based on justice, peace and respect for all life. This is what I will grow in my incubator.
I will also practice and refine my own artistic skills, learn from other socially committed artists, explore new techniques and expand my toolbox for creating cultural change. The human imagination is one of the most powerful forces on earth. That which we can imagine, we can build. Socially committed art is one of the most effective ways to free our imaginations, to turn all that creative power toward the common good, toward designing and building societies based on justice, peace and respect for all life. This is what I will grow in my incubator.
Vehicle for Change is an organizing project.
An important part of my mission is bringing together activists from the different circles I touch, people who focus on disability, the medical system, environmental justice, affordable housing, economic justice, sustainable community development, community based health care, food security, co-housing, art and social justice, traditional healing, renewable energy, climate change, and support for the ecologically-oriented, democratically-minded, socialist revolutionaries of Latin America's ALBA alliance.
Everywhere I go, I'll gather diverse groups of people for purposeful conversation about the deepest and broadest meanings of health, environment, justice, and ask how we can work together to build a movement strong enough, radical enough, and unified enough to make our planet a just and healthy place for all living things.
After a period of intensive travel, I'll choose a home base, where the Vehicle can be integrated into a social justice community and continue to be a tool for educating and organizing people about environmental health, gathering stories, and making social justice art. I will also continue to take it on the road in order, to paraphrase other epic travelers, "to seek out new ways of life and build a new civilization."
Everywhere I go, I'll gather diverse groups of people for purposeful conversation about the deepest and broadest meanings of health, environment, justice, and ask how we can work together to build a movement strong enough, radical enough, and unified enough to make our planet a just and healthy place for all living things.
After a period of intensive travel, I'll choose a home base, where the Vehicle can be integrated into a social justice community and continue to be a tool for educating and organizing people about environmental health, gathering stories, and making social justice art. I will also continue to take it on the road in order, to paraphrase other epic travelers, "to seek out new ways of life and build a new civilization."
