Long Division explores the internal landscape of illness, the quiet weight of responsibility, and the complex relationship between health and vulnerability. This series functions as a self-portrait, not through my physical presence, but by capturing the emotional and psychological effects of chronic health struggles. The absence of figures within the images is intentional, allowing the spaces to embody the presence of absence to evoke dissociation.
The photographs depict both suffocating confinement and fleeting moments of breath. These environments, often desolate and confined, symbolize the complexities of illness—the quiet chaos of feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and discarded. At the same time, there are subtle moments of relief, offering glimpses of air, allowing the viewer to process their emotional response to the tension between suffering and hope. The photographs result from my hyperfiction in a space while my mind spins, yearning for answers and a plan.
The locations I photograph are liminal—between moments, often during transitions between medical appointments or while traveling back and forth from Connecticut and Queens. The photographs, alongside hand-built ceramic paper cups that look like they’ve been crushed and left behind in doctors’ waiting rooms, bear witness to the endless blood draws that pushed this work into being. These spaces and items are metaphors for the in-between stages of health and illness, a journey marked by constant reflection and uncertainty. The weight of illness is felt in every corner, but it is only through these quiet, reflective places that the emotional weight of the work becomes palpable.
Through color, composition, and the framing of each image, I inspect the different forms of chaos that can occur in the cadence of confinement. The work speaks to a larger narrative of human fragility and the search for air amidst the crushing weight of life's struggles. It is both a personal reflection and an invitation for the viewer to contemplate their experience with vulnerability, health, and the moments of respite we all seek.