Through the lens of her own grief at the physical suffering of her daughter from intractable epilepsy and multiple surgeries, she pursues what grief is hers, and what grief is learned from the broad and pervasive tragedy narrative surrounding disability.
Elvina reckons with her own ableism as she examines her resistance to being a full time caregiver. She exposes her family’s descent into life below the Federal Poverty Level to illustrate the failing social safety nets around long term care and disability. In her work, Elvina invites the reader to look at ableism as the direct relation to white supremacy, racism and sexism. She asks, whose life is determined to be of value, and why? She probes the spiritual question of what is/has been lost when we dehumanize and segregate vast populations of neurodiverse people over time.
Elvina has been awarded residencies at MacDowell (Rona Jaffe Fellowship and Rona Jaffe Fellow for 2022), PLAYA Summer Lake, Storyknife, and Looking Glass Arts. She was a Creatives Rebuild New York Capital Grant recipient, and was selected for the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Artist as Entrepreneur Program. She is a graduate of Smith College as an Ada Comstock Scholar.
Elvina is an ultramarathon runner and cold water enthusiast.