Cocoon
by Lisa Shen
Click here to read Lisa's full essay.
[Video Description: There is a dark blue background. On the left of the screen, taking up 2/3 of the screen, is the 'Cocoon’ video. On the right is a video of Natasha "Courage" Bacchus, a Black Deaf female with short salt/pepper hair. She is wearing an off-white shirt and is in front of a white wall. She is interpreting the video in American Sign Language. The 'Cocoon’ video starts with a title card featuring a dark blue background. At the top is The Disability Collective logo. To the left is the No Body Left Behind graphic. Beside that are the words "Cocoon by Lisa Shen". Underneath is "thedisabilitycollective.com". All text is in white. This fades into a video with the same blue background. In the left corner is The Disability Collective logo in white. Below that is the graphic for No Body Left Behind. On the right is a selfie of Lisa sitting at her desk in front of a microphone. She is wearing red lipstick and a blue jean jacket, with her hair in two braids. She is smiling and looking into the camera. An audio wave in white plays overtop her photo as she speaks. Once her essay excerpt starts, various videos of butterflies play. After her essay, the video then goes back to the image of the blue background with the TDC logo, the graphic for No Body Left Behind, and the photo of Lisa with the audio waves. After she finishes speaking, this fades into the end card, featuring the dark blue background from before, the No Body Behind Logo in the middle, with the TDC logo on top, and "thedisabilitycollective.com" at the bottom]
ASL Interpretation by Natasha "Courage" Bacchus
LISA SHEN (she/her)
Lisa Shen is a Chinese-Canadian writer and spoken word artist based in Toronto. Her work centers on gender-based violence and disability rights. Lisa was the first place winner of the 2021 Mississauga Poetry Slam, and a Speaker at the TEDx McMasterU 2022 conference. Her work has also been featured at several arts festivals, including the JAYU Human Rights Film Festival and Humainologie Short Story Festival. As a passionate teacher, Lisa has created and instructed debate classes for youth. She is enthusiastic about bringing the joys of spoken word into classrooms through workshops and showcases.
Instagram: @itslisashen
Website: lisashen.ca
No Body Left Behind is an online campaign centred around the disabled community’s concerns regarding the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, including mask and vaccine mandates. We hope that this campaign will raise awareness around those who are being left behind as the world returns to “normal”.
We are currently raising money to go directly towards paying the artists and Deaf Interpreters who are featured as part of this project. We are relying solely on donations from our incredibly community to support this project!