Housebound.
2019 - 2022
I became housebound in 2019. Instead of starting the physical theater degree that I had dreamt off I now had to find other ways to express myself whilst being extremely limited. I turned to taking self-portraits accompanied by texts about my life. As I could not engage in much real life social activities as they exhausted me I found a community online of mostly fellow sick people and we would respond to each others work.
Because of my illness situation the pictures were mostly taken by caretaker: my mother, who though she really tries, is far from a professional photographer. At the time I was also not able to stand, sit, nor hold poses for long periods of time. Pictures had to be taken quickly and I would have to rest before, after and in between. Yet they gave me a deep sense of purpose and meaning which was necessary to survive through some unbearable years.
As a community we are dramatically underrepresented. I hope to support wider representation of people living through a similair situation. We exist and are in need of support. Whilst we are some of those most in need we are also least able to advocate for ourselves leaving us often whole-sale neglected.
Since 2022 I have not been housebound.
This is a selection of a larger collection. Has been featured in:
Crash Exhibition, Art House Factory in Austria, Black Ferk Studios Website
Braids Journal, 2023, Buy
Alt Text Selfies, 2022, Website
CUD Exhibition Worm Gallery Rotterdam, Nov 2022 Instagram
Through the Window Project, June 2021 Instagram // DutchCulture.nl
DAYS... The picture is a still life of my experience being chronically ill. This particular beige colour scheme represents the blandness of my everyday life, the sense that the days bleed into one another and can feel indistinguishable as they largely contain no particular highlights or remarkable events. They are utterly predictable and similar and therefore evoke little emotion or inspiration. Having said that, this uniformity does create a sense of calm that supports the container of rest that I do require. So it is both wanted and unwanted, aesthetically pleasing in some ways and disturbing in others.
IMAGINATION IS A QUESTION OF SURVIVAL In order to survive being bed-based you have to turn to your imagination. You might appear to be lying in your bed all day but that doesn’t mean that this is where you have to be living your life. You could be anywhere. You could be at a lavish costumed summer garden party near a castle. Imagination is a question of survival.
BEDBOUND... In this self-portrait we see the artist, a young white person with long brown hair, lying in her bed. She is naked and wearing a white bedsheet which is given the appearance of a gown by a faux leather black BDSM body harness. Her hands are inside the harness around her upper legs. Tying her into the bed she almost becomes part of the bed as the sheets that she is wearing exactly match the rest of the bed. She appears to be drowning or disappearing, losing her individuality whilst being unable to escape her seemingly unending bed.
DOODLE SHEET... Limitations require creativity, creativity requires limitations. If you can't work vertically why not make it horizontal? My bed is my studio.
STIRY-CRAZY...
EDITORIAL.. Usually when beds show up in mainstream fashion photography they carry associations of sensuality, opulence or sex with for instance models wearing lingerie casually lounging on their satin silk beds or having breakfast in bed with their lover. Alternatively maybe a bed is involved when a ‘morning after’ scene is portrayed where the models have smeared mascara on their faces and their slightly ruffled party outfits still on. Here the bed helps set up this image of youthful wildness and exuberance. Or perhaps we see a celebrity couple snuggling in their bed looking fabulous and madly in love. There the bed represents intimacy and closeness. What do these representations mean for people who actually spend the majority of their day in bed? Disabled and chronically ill people for whom their bed is a space of rest but also confinement and for whom fashion might seem unattainable or barely relevant to their lives.
NO LONGER AFRAID OF BEING CANCELLED... Being chronically ill does it for you.
Bed-Fashion... Before I became chronically ill self-expression through fashion was a big part of my life. However obviously being bed-based and housebound changes everything. How do you relate to clothing when you spend the majority of your time in your bed and you rarely leave the house? Who are you dressing up for? What does fashion mean to you when you barely have the energy to take care of your basic needs? I started choosing my bedsheets for the week on the basis of my mood or events happening in my life and would match my daily outfits to my bedsheets. I basically incorporated my bedsheets as part of my outfit. I would then post a picture of some of these ‘Bed Fashion’ outfits to my instagram. In this way I found an audience for my fashion choices namely the chronically ill community online and I found a way for my bed to become a pivotal part of my self expression rather than just an unfortunate backdrop I am forced to be in.
My Fragile Self. 2019- 2024
My Fragile Self is a self portraiture project on the realities of having a fragile ego. Although openly discussing your mental health has become less taboo ‘ego-fragility’ is still seen as deeply shameful. Can we make this distinction? Aren’t a ‘fragile ego’ and mental health problems deeply intertwined? I found this contradiction particularly present in my own activist community where we advocated for people with mental health issues as an ‘oppressed’ social group and yet at the same time used the term ‘fragile’ as a pejorative. Healing our ego-fragility requires the space to acknowledge it first without fear of losing our belonging to our community. In claiming my own ego-fragility I hope to create space for others to do so as well and to generate greater tenderness and compassion towards this experience.
FRAGILE AS FUCK.... I imagine deep down everyone wants to be resilient but resilience isn’t just a question of ‘character’, ‘will-power’ or ‘trying harder’. This is classic ableism. So much influences the development of your sense of self and psychological resilience such as childhood adversity, structural violence, your individual neurobiology, genetics, specific life events, spiritual and ideological influences, physical activity, trans-generational trauma, access to social support, community, family, the culture you come from and so much more. It is not something you can just ‘choose’ to be, it is something however you can choose to work towards with guidance and compassion.
I SECRETELY DESIRE TO BE FAMOUS.... I imagine it would make me feel so beloved. During the worst times of my mental health crisis I was convinced that my life wasn’t real. That I was actually like Frida Kahlo or some other famous person that had my attention back then. The world just had not caught on yet. My life right now was a temporary glitch on the way to my true and grand destiny: I would finally feel like I mattered! I would finally feel like I mattered! My past would become irrelevant in comparison to the magnificence of the future that awaited me. This is how I soothed my pain and circumvented my reality. It hurt when i realised that this was textbook being-delusional. But it also set me free. I don’t think I am Frida Kahlo anymore. But some part of me, against better judgement, still imagines famous people must feel so validated and secure.
MY TINY WINDOW OF TOLERANCE. I have a very narrow window of tolerance. Although it has expanded much over the past years, small things - like a tense conversation or a sad movie - can still trigger me into full-scale dysregulation. I then have to spend ages trying to soothe myself back to a state of relative calm. [Dysregulation also worsens my ME/CFS symptoms and so literally makes me sick]. Engaging in life when you have such a narrow window of tolerance feels pretty impossible and is hard on your surroundings too. I often wonder where people whose nervous systems are tuned this way can go.
DOWNWARD SPIRAL...
FRAGILE... There is no shame in being fragile. Let us be fragile together.
TERRIFIED HERO... I don't want to be more courageous, I want to have less reasons to be afraid.