Unbodied

Unbodied explores the intersection of women's health, mystification, and pseudoscience, shaped by my experience navigating the healthcare system as a woman.

For centuries, women's bodily functions have been pathologised, misunderstood, and clouded by misogyny, significantly impacting diagnosis, treatment, and accessibility of care for conditions such as endometriosis and autoimmune disorders.

In the absence of clear medical guidance or diagnosis, many women—often informed by communities on social media—turn towards pseudoscientific practices and holistic rituals in search of relief. Unbodied emerges from my own experience with a personal medical struggle and subsequent diagnosis. Through medium-format film, darkroom prints, and archival materials, I explore the pseudoscientific rituals and alternative remedies relied upon for coping. These practices resonate historically with women who, when denied adequate medical care, similarly sought answers outside traditional healthcare systems. This series does not reject medicine but critiques the gaps within a medical system that continues to overlook or diminish women's experiences and symptoms.

Historically, narratives of hysteria, witchcraft, and other harmful myths have been used to police and pathologise women's bodies. These archaic constructs subtly persist within contemporary Western healthcare, influencing the treatment and diagnostic process. My images reflect on this ongoing legacy by visually exploring tropes of disembodiment and levitation—metaphors historically employed in both medical texts and art to portray women's bodies as mysterious or irrational.

These experiences are also deeply intersectional. Women of colour, disabled women, and queer women encounter even greater barriers within the healthcare system, where disparities in treatment and outcomes persist. Their stories, like mine, are part of a long, ongoing history of neglect and dismissal.