Hi, I’m Jonah Simmons from the USA, and I have been living with type 1 diabetes since 2024.
I joined the Blue Circle Voices Network to contribute a perspective shaped by both my lived experience and my creative practice. As an artist and a person with diabetes, I use ceramics and mixed media to translate the everyday realities of living with a chronic condition into visual and material forms. My work explores survival, repetition, vulnerability and adaptation – themes that closely reflect my experience of managing diabetes.
I want to broaden the way we communicate about diabetes beyond clinical information and statistics by highlighting its emotional and lived realities. I believe art can be a powerful advocacy tool, making complex experiences more visible, accessible and relatable to wider audiences.
As a Blue Circle Voice, I hope to bring this creative perspective to discussions and initiatives that raise awareness, improve access to care and reduce stigma. I am particularly interested in supporting conversations that centre lived experience and amplify diverse voices within the diabetes community, using creativity to help people better understand what living with diabetes can mean.
“As an artist and a person with diabetes, I use ceramics and mixed media to translate the everyday realities of living with a chronic condition into visual and material forms. My work explores survival, repetition, vulnerability and adaptation – themes that closely reflect my experience of managing diabetes.”
