Malfunctions

Susan Wendell (1993) argues that “suspicion surrounds people with chronic illnesses—suspicion about how ill/disabled we really are, how or why we became ill, whether we are doing everything possible to get well, and how mismanaging our lives, minds, or souls may be contributing to our continuing illness” (p. 28). These works examines the impacts of not being believed and feeling like sick people have to prove they are sick to get accommodations in a neoliberal world. Over the last decade, I have photographed myself in some of my more vulnerable states to prove to some imagined other that I am truly sick. Building on my series, Documentation, Malfunction exams the unwell, malfunction body and the ways we care for ourselves through the lens of glitch. These works first glitch self-portraits and remix the broken digital image through analog collage.