Do No Harm

IMG_20200908_151524.jpeg
 

I have been exploring the notion of “sickness and cure” and how it is used as a tool for conditioning in  school, religious and medical institutions, and within family structures. The medical gaze is always perceptive of deviancy and it turns individuals into spectacle and knowledge. The process of looking at a body and interpreting what is seen puts medical practitioners in a position of power for being able to alleviate pain and “inadequacy”.

What does it mean to become a patient? What does it mean to undergo standardized procedures that have a history of human experimentation? is there space to be more than a body within medical practice?

The project Do no Harm is a visual essay that explores medicine as an ideological apparatus. The way that medicine is learned, practiced, and how new knowledge is acquired has been essential to the development of society and a very powerful political tool. The title of the project comes from the Hippocratic oath that medical practitioners take. This project aims to question and explore different components of medicine such as the vulnerability of the body, power dynamics, intimacy, affect, instruments and history.

Part 1: Soft Bodies