CiTR

Germ Girl

Chloe Roger

Germ Girl is a creative non-fiction audio project exploring contamination and germs conceptually, how humans have evolved in their understanding of what disease-causing outside contaminants are, how to avoid them, and why we think we ought to? Highlighting perspectives from medieval historians, microbiologists, and community members invested in mental health.

“I learnt to find safety from disease through exclusion. Carefully vetting what I let pass through my body. My OCD implored me to do everything in my power to defend the boundaries of my body, to lighten the load of my immune system—no, to take on the role of my immune system.”

Germ girl explores the host’s journey through reconciling her relationship with germs. Developing overwhelming and all-consuming germ fears during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she attempts any remedies to reduce contamination. Through learning that trying to exile all microbes from our bodies and spaces is futile and that living among microbes is an oh so natural part of life, Germ Girl concludes in accepting the porous nature of the human body and rejects the fear associated with living with germs.