Sarah Squirm Uses Body Horror and Piss to Tackle COVID Exhaustion

On Friday, the comedian and artist debuted her new project "Sarah Vaccine," which she described as a "technicolor nightmare of handmade DIY practical gore and sequins" that even sees her using her own piss to make a new vaccine (!!!).

Primarily known for her frenzied body horror comedy, Squirm explained that the piece is her take on our collective COVID burn-out via a video utilizing "kaleidoscopic, whiplash-inducing, brain-breaking absurdity" to mirror the insanity of the past year.

"What I wanted to do with this project was challenge myself to make something that responds to the hell of what this past year felt like," Squirm explained. "To make something about COVID that wasn't too corny, that's more so about how we've been failed by every single institution that's been put in place to protect us... and how everything is stupid and doesn't make sense."

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As such, Squirm also teamed up with socialist, worker-owned streaming service MeansTV to premiere "Sarah Vaccine," which can only be called a maniacal, gross-out and overwhelming response to lockdown hell, featuring heavy noise music from Chicago-based label Hausu Mountain, facial prosthetics by Eris Deothat, props by Joe Holliday and snippets of a music video by Leah Hennessey and Ruby McCollister.

But of course, all of this keeps going back to Squirm's signature brand of cartoonish body horror and the feeling of the entire lockdown being "the most body horror year ever."

"[It was] a year of constantly being aware of what my lungs feel like, the paranoia of a smog of breath floating around your head carrying a contagious disease all around you, the claustrophobia of breathing hot stinkbreath into a mask, the image of a vaccine NEEDLE plunging into arms," as Squirm said.

"It was all very physical, very visceral, very body horror, so i was like, 'Aight, let's make this whole thing as physical and tangible as possible, while still maintaining the absurdity of the stupidest year ever," she added. "So that's what SARAH VACCINE is...absurd, stupid, practical, and covered in rhinestones!"

Check out "Sarah Vaccine," below.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Squirm