Paramnesia’ is an expressive study of feelings of isolation and seclusion after chronic illness of being diagnosed with Neurocardiogenic Syncope. The performances represent a partial acceptance of a new identity and play with the illusions of reality, much enthused by the experimental works of Francesca Woodman. I took inspiration from how she integrated her body into the photographic frame to produce agile, responsive imagery.
When illness spreads it becomes hard to remember what being ‘normal’ was once like. The photographs test the battle of controlling illness with daily social life; do you control your illness, or does it control you? The performances become poetic. The sixteen photographs were taken in an isolated, locked room. I was very much inspired by Freud’s schema of the mind, in particular his diagram of the ID, Ego and Superego; we are more than one identity within one body. I looked ordinary, but inside I was frustrated and disabled.
I used photography to blend my body into the environment around me and incorporate myself into the whole frame; this studied both my improvement since diagnosis, but limitations for the future. The process demonstrated the different elements of my self that have collected into one physical being.
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