Most of us take our means to speak without any consideration. We sort, we converse, we write, we gesture. However what occurs when that elementary human capability all of the sudden fractures?
Artist and designer Eilish Briscoe is aware of precisely what exists in that terrifying hole. Following a stroke that left her with aphasia—a situation affecting language comprehension and manufacturing—she confronted a artistic crossroads that may have silenced many artists completely.
As an alternative, Eilish found one thing exceptional: when conventional language fails, new types of communication can emerge from the ruins.
A life reworked in a single day
Eilish’s journey started through the first COVID lockdown in 2020, when she was simply 25 and had just lately moved from northwest England to London to kickstart her profession.
What began as what appeared like a extreme migraine shortly escalated into one thing way more critical. The room started spinning, she skilled breathlessness, and a tingling sensation crept up her face and arm, adopted by violent illness.
Nobody recognised these as stroke signs—they did not align with the broadly recognized FAST acronym (Face, Arm, Speech, Time) sometimes related to strokes. So Eilish solely realized she had suffered a stroke round 25 hours after her first signs appeared.
On her second day in hospital, Eilish tried to jot down down her emotions. However as an alternative of coherent ideas, solely incoherent squiggles got here out. She was experiencing dysgraphia, a neurological dysfunction that made writing almost unimaginable—a very devastating symptom for somebody whose life was working in visible communication.
The next weeks had been among the darkest in her life. Her signs deteriorated to the purpose the place she turned totally incapacitated, requiring round the clock care. She misplaced her speech, her motion, and wanted help with fundamental duties.
When phrases turn out to be unimaginable
It was throughout this time that Eilish got here to a profound realisation: expression is a luxurious, and it was one she now not possessed. The instruments that had as soon as been computerized—writing, talking, creating—had been all of the sudden absent.
Restoration got here progressively, with the devoted assist of rehabilitation therapists, household, and Eilish’s personal decided observe. One train turned notably important: working alongside her mom, Eilish would try to repeat letters over and over.
These observe sheets would later turn out to be the muse for her groundbreaking creative work. What started as rehabilitation workouts would remodel into a robust meditation on the fragility and preciousness of human expression.
This summer time, the modern East London gallery Artwork Apply—a collaborative area working with famend artists together with Mike Skrgatic, James Allen, Daniel Eatock, Dan Tobin Smith and Maria Lax—presents Eilish’s newest investigation into this liminal territory.
‘I Do not Have The Phrases’, working from August 7-25, showcases a compelling new physique of labor that transforms neurological disruption into profound creative inquiry.
What makes Eilish’s story so compelling is not simply private triumph; it is the way in which she’s managed to universalise a deeply private expertise. Her journey from acute vulnerability to creating a completely new visible language speaks to elementary questions on human adaptability and the chances for making significant work, even when our most elementary instruments are stripped away.
The artwork of damaged language
The work within the present represents a daring continuation of her groundbreaking 2024 typeface Perhaps, a font extracted from her post-stroke handwriting. The typeface takes its title from a phrase that turned central to Eilish’s restoration expertise. When her speech was severely impaired and autonomy was misplaced, the phrase “perhaps” turned a refuge, representing each the hopelessness of uncertainty and the opportunity of hope.
Notably, the typeface accommodates no capital letters or punctuation—as a result of at that stage of restoration, these components had been past Eilish’s capabilities. Every letterform was extracted from her handwriting observe inside just some days of one another, making a snapshot of a selected second in her journey again to communication.
However the place many would possibly see limitation, Eilish has found liberation, exploring what occurs when letterforms are divorced from their conventional perform as carriers of which means. The result’s work that operates within the liminal area between graphic design, sculpture and set up artwork.
The typeface has already been reworked into highly effective immersive installations, the place Eilish has lined exhibition partitions with phrases taken immediately from her post-stroke notes and recollections, together with the exhibition Expression is a Luxurious at Ok-Home in Manchester this Could.
Lived expertise as creative materials
At present, Eilish’s interdisciplinary strategy—spanning graphic design, printmaking, sculpture, and set up—demonstrates how private narrative can turn out to be a robust software for broader cultural dialog about communication, accessibility, and human connection.
A part of her mission includes addressing the disgrace that usually accompanies stroke restoration, notably in younger individuals. Many younger stroke survivors, she notes, merely fake their expertise by no means occurred, particularly when re-entering the office, the place admitting to a mind harm can really feel stigmatising.
This new exhibition is crucial viewing for anybody working on the intersection of design and social impression—a reminder that a few of our strongest artistic instruments emerge not from what we will management, however from what we can not.
