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Making Space for Trauma
***trigger warning*** medical and surgical trauma.
‘Making Space for Trauma’ is an ongoing series of digital collages and drawings, in which I use both found and personal images to re-contextualise recent medical traumas. This is a process I have found necessary to make space for and work through these trauma’s. In my experience as a young women with a chronic and rare condition and a history of medically documented trauma I have been frequently gaslight by medical professionals and having a history of trauma has often stood in the way of an accurate diagnosis and adequate care. On the flip side of this the trauma of not being believed, of being sick and of having to fight so hard for medical care has been completely overlooked by Western biomedical institutes which have not taken account of how traumatising being a patient can be.
Description: Striking contrast of black and white picture of 6 seated women with white nurses’ caps and white uniforms , one in a darker uniform. There is one suited man seated with crossed arms. None of the faces are visible . The only colour is provided by the view from an open window displaying a vibrant sky with a twirl of colours.
description: Black background with a multitude of bright lights (space) with random 4 bigger white lights. A floating (female) face in shades of (milk chocolate) brown, a tube is attached to the nose. It falls down in a wide twist with 2 pennant like attached.
description: Dark background with mauvish overtones in space, gets brighter under the curled up female form curled up with a red cloth with knees drawn up. She has a black vest and black undergarment. Her feet touch on seemingly, a blue gleaming crystal. Her head is on 2 red pillows.
description: 3 figures in dark green surgical costumes. They are bending over, one with a scalpel in hand. Only the person in the middle has a face, the other 2 faces are integrated into the background – a dark mauvish space with small dots. A circle hangs like a light on the operating table but it has a white marble sheen with blood colour streaks. The person in the middle has the only face, bespectacled with a mask.
description: figure in a stretcher covered with white sheet, arms and face is hollowed out as space.. There are tubes attached and a breathing tube.
Charlie Fitz (she/her/they) is a sick and disabled artist, writer and medical humanities postgraduate. Her multiform projects explore experiences of illness, whilst aiming to resist and challenge the expectation that the ‘sick’ be patient or passive to medical paternalisms. She utilises photography, collage, digital and material forms in her work, exploring the boundaries between the creative, the academic and the activist. She is an exhibited artist and has had various written and visual work published in magazines, journals and zines. See and learn more about her work at:www.sickofbeingpatient.comTwitter @CharlieJLFitzInstagram @CharlieJLFitz
This is part of the Sister Stories series.
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