I'm Still Her/e

I'm Still Her/e explores the lasting effects of judgement, medical dismissal and bodily violation. The work grew from experiences of having my appearance used as evidence of my character and health, particularly within medical settings, where assumptions about my weight repeatedly overrode what I was saying about my own body.

A female figure is almost engulfed by a larger male body and its surrounding limbs. The composition is deliberately suffocating: the central face remains visible while bodies crowd around it, suggesting the experience of trying to keep hold of yourself while other people’s judgements, diagnoses and interpretations threaten to overwhelm your own knowledge of who you are.

The work also carries the memory of an assault by a doctor, placing that experience within a wider history of medical trauma, loss of bodily autonomy and being made to feel that my body was something available for other people to assess, threaten, manage or dismiss.

The outer figure’s arms have broken away. Rather than repairing them, I allowed that damage to remain. I am now diagnosed and medically safer, and the immediate threat has passed, but its effects have not disappeared. Some days the past still feels physically close, as though I am back inside it.

The title is both survival and defiance. I absorbed the judgements, the threats, the dismissal and the violation. I did not become the person I was told I needed to become in order to deserve care. I am still here, and more myself than ever.