Toxic Kids
By Lise Melhorn-Boe
North Bay, Canada: Transformer Press, 2009. Edition of 50.

8.5 x 11"; 18 unnumbered pages. Photocopied on acid-free Boise HDP Color Copy and Color Copy cover.

Another bookwork featuring Lise Melhorn-Boe's research into connections between health and the environment. In conducting her research she prepared a questionnaire which included questions about childhood environments.

Lise Melhorn-Boe, Questionnaire: Tell me about your childhood. In what kind of environment did you grow up? For example, did you live near an electrical transformer or transmission line? in or near an agricultural/industrial area? near a gas station, print shop, dry-cleaning establishment? Was there a lot of tension in your family?

This young girl's paper doll book incorporates information uncovered in her research: certain articles of clothing hold information, hand-printed by the artist, that specifically relates to connections between childhood environments and adult health.

Breast-feeding infants occupy a higher rung on the
food-chain than the rest of us. In many cases, human
milk contains pesticide residues in excess of legal limits
for commercially marketed food. Nursing babies take in
the highest doses of contaminants that they will
experience in their entire lives: levels ten to forty times
greater than the daily exposure of an adult.
(Living Downstream . Steingraber, Sandra. Don Mills: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Our Stolen Future. Colborn, Theo et al. New York: Dutton, 1976.)

$75