020213036A47

Luca Pauwels

Work in progress

2022- ...

When I was twenty years old, I got diagnosed with Long Covid. This means my body and immune system were severely harmed from having Covid-19 and I have never really recovered from the illness. Three years later, I still suffer from chronic symptoms such as headaches, throat pain, joint pains, et cetera. The most prominent symptom for me is severe chronic fatigue.

During the years of medical tests, I started gathering every scrap of documentation, trying to grasp the situation. I felt like my body wasn’t mine anymore, just in the hands of different doctors that didn’t really know what to do with my illness. I started photographing with my polaroid and let the doctors take portraits of me, because I felt like they had the power, not me.

When I broke my leg, suddenly everyone could see the pain I was in. Doors were opened for me, people understood why I couldn’t do certain things, … A big contrast with my invisible struggle with Long Covid. I played with the visibility of the cast, the crutches and wheelchair. The parts that were broken and mended were visible on RX-images, which isn’t the case for my chronic illness.

By making photograms of my medical documentation in the darkroom and pairing them with my polaroids, I reclaimed the images and made them mine again. Visualizing my invisible illness.

Graphic Design by Simon Oste

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