Inhabiting The Sick Space - Inclusive art practice ma 2020

These pieces of work are a response and continuation of my arts-based research project which explored the collaboration and connections illustrative practices can provide young adults, between the ages of 18-25, with chronic pain related conditions. This research project stemmed from my own experiences of being chronically ill from a young age. This lived experience provided a starting point which is slowly starting to grow thanks to my collaboration with my participant Charlotte.

 I collaborated with Charlotte over the course of 5 sessions at the Phoenix Centre in Brighton. My initial interest in collaboration quickly developed further into the interaction of disabled and chronically ill bodies with each other and how lived experience effects the process of research and facilitation.  

 Chronically ill individuals can often feel isolated by their body, surroundings and interactions, often spending a majority of time at home or in the four walls of their bedrooms. For young people, this is on top of the already physically and mentally demanding period of adolescents and young adulthood. Activities such as life drawing, printing, collaging and journaling were ways in which to re-discover the places our bodies inhabit in a different and creative way. To reflect on these spaces in this way helped reinvigorate engagement with ourselves and others.

 The space we inhabited in the Phoenix started to become an extension of our body spaces. This layered experience together, and with Phoenix and its inhabitants, reflected our layered bodies and conditions. The outsides gaze often permeates through our body space, but we are also able to project out of it. It is essential to acknowledge a two-way dialogue, instead of the one-way gaze of the outside, through a seemingly opaque surface.