ALT I keep thinking about how easily history can celebrate one person and forget the people who paid the price for what they achieved. Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey were enslaved women who endured experimental surgeries at the hands of J. Marion Sims. Their pain became part of the history of modern gynaecology, but for so long, the story was mostly about him. I imagined what it must have meant to be in that room, to be afraid, to be hurting, and to have the other women there with you. So I made them hold each other. I made them beautiful and regal even with the blood and torn clothes because I didn’t want their suffering to be the only thing we saw. We talk about what was discovered, what changed medicine, who became important, but sometimes we don’t reflect on what it cost or who had to carry that cost with their bodies. They had names. Anarcha. Lucy. Betsey.