Nowhere Land

Nowhere Land is centered on the chronic Lyme community and examines how healthcare systems respond to contested illness, revealing how medical, social, and environmental forces converge to shape systemic and human vulnerability.

Nowhere Land is a research-based, interdisciplinary project that examines systemic failures in healthcare systems when confronted with large-scale medically contested health crises. Centered on the chronic Lyme disease community in the United States — while recognizing Lyme as a growing global public health concern, particularly in the context of climate change — the project uses this condition as a lens to investigate recurring institutional dynamics: denial in the face of uncertainty, the protection of medical authority, and the stigmatization of patient populations whose symptoms fall outside established diagnostic frameworks.

After my diagnosis of neurological Lyme disease in 2021 and limited relief through standard treatment, I turned to alternative therapies online, where I encountered a large community of chronic Lyme patients and began interviewing them, documenting their stories and shared struggles. Through photography, text, and archival materials, the work reveals decades of misdiagnosis, neglect, and stigma — highlighting the profound medical, emotional, social, and financial consequences faced by this overlooked community.

Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness transmitted through tick bites. Its symptoms range from fever, pain, and extreme fatigue to severe neurological and psychiatric disorders, cardiac problems, and autoimmune complications. Since its recognition in the 1970s in Lyme, Connecticut, Lyme disease has become one of the fastest-growing infectious diseases in the United States. Yet, nearly fifty years later, patients’ situations have not improved. Ongoing controversy and systemic denial leave many facing even harsher realities. Climate change has increased infection risk, making the crisis even more severe.

Rather than focusing solely on Lyme disease as a medical condition, the project asks a broader question: how does a healthcare system respond to what it cannot fully understand? A tiny organism — the tick — reveals a larger vulnerability in how we respond to health crises. In this sense, Nowhere Land is not only about Lyme disease. It shows how medical, social, and environmental forces converge, shaping a crisis that is both systemic and deeply human.