There’s No Harm In Any Blessings
Liga Spunde
(2020)
There’s No Harm In Any Blessings is a multimedia installation that is a reflection on relationships, sense of security, overprotection, and faith in the supernatural as a defense strategy. Līga Spunde interweaves fragments of her childhood memories, personal stories, religious iconography together with the story of David Vetter, also known as ‘The Bubble Boy’. Just like Spunde herself, David too came from a loving family, but, unlike hers, his parents were religious. Faith in a miracle became the central motif of his life, and so did his parents’ decision to protect him from the harsh and unsafe world.
David Vetter has suffered from severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) since his birth in 1971, which made his survival impossible outside a sterile environment. As soon as David was born, his parents made the decision to put him in a special germ-free chamber until a solution for him acquiring immunity could be found. Instead of just a few months, David spent 12 years (his entire life span) in this chamber. Even though David was provided with conditions conducive for his survival, life in the “bubble” had a powerful impact on his perception of and relationship with the outer world.
The video is a poetic collage of facts and interpretations, using motifs from the artists own life, as well as the story of David Vetter. The piece is structured in four parts, and two of them taking place in a dark, abstract space. These dialogues were written by Vetter. When he got very bored, he would write short screenplays, which he would later play out together with his psychotherapist Mary Ada Murphy. The dialogue in the video is a short and simple conversation between a wife (David) and a husband (Murphy), which shows the tragedy of David’s totally sterile, safe, and isolated life, as well as his reaction to it: Using performance and imagination as a coping mechanism.