FASCIA

Beneath the Surface, Holding It Together

Fascia is a project made up of camera-less experimental techniques looking at the body’s hidden biological structures and pathways while coming from an informed angle on the unseen labour of the people keeping it going.

Made in collaboration with Gull, my friend and second-year student paramedic, the project was built off conversations over coffee about the realities of working as a woman within the ambulance service. It grew into visual art therapy with inspiration from old 90’s paramedic textbooks and medical imaging processes.

Working without a camera, I chose the chemigram process using analogue techniques in the darkroom. We created physical abstract images depicting cell structures, neural pathways and reproductive organs in black and white, scanned them, and turned them into saturated artificial colours mimicking TEM and CT scans. The idea of fascia stems from this. It’s our connective tissue binding together all our internal structures, invisible and under-researched, similar to the essential work of our country’s paramedic and healthcare staff.

Gull’s input is essential to the bones of this work, and her voice is apparent throughout. She gave me old 90’s textbooks for visual inspiration which were passed down to her by a friend following a former paramedic’s death. This shaped the direction of the project and added another layer of care and emotional involvement to its cause. She also provided an ECG of her heart rate to be displayed alongside the work, representing her without portraiture or uniform. This informed my decision to move away from documentary photography, avoiding the institutional gaze that can reduce healthcare workers to their job role. The work celebrates Gull as a human first.

Presented in a 4×4 square, it invites the viewer to read the body left to right. Brain, blood, ribcage, reproduction.