Being a patient today increasingly means being an image. Liz Orton’s new artist’s book, Every Body is an Archive, takes the medical image as a site of critical enquiry to explore questions of ownership, language and power within the clinical encounter. Polyphony editor Fiona Johnstone met with Liz Orton to talk about the book, the centrality of image-making to medical practice, and how right now is a radical moment for the clinical gaze.
How can artworks question prevailing norms and assumptions in medicine and healthcare? Imogen Wiltshire argues that the work of artist Rebecca Harris plays a critical role in exploring and addressing stigma and preconceptions about the fat body.
Graphic medicine provides insight into the complex issues around health, society and relationships. The ‘Haunting Our Bodies’ workshop as part of the Being Human Festival, led by Chase Ledin and Garry MacLaughlin, allowed participants to explore this and have a go at creating their own artwork.
Alexandra Barmpouti reviews Bonnie Lander Johnson and Eleanor Decamp’s Blood Matters: Studies in European Literature and Thought, 1400-1700 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Blood is not merely a biological substance but has often acquired cultural, religious and
Guest author Chase Ledin explores how comic books become a significant platform for HIV/AIDS narratives with the example of Charles Burn’s Black Hole (2005) series. Black nights. Bone-like branches. The stars open from a
Wellcome Collection’s new permanent exhibition, ‘Being Human’ opened to the public on September 5th. The Polyphony’s associate editor Fiona Johnstone caught up with curator Clare Barlow.
Anisha Gupta explores Wellcome Collection’s new ‘Being Human’ display.
Wendy Lowe reviews Anna Harpin’s Madness, Art, and Society: Beyond Illness (Routledge, 2018). Madness, Art and Society provides a comprehensive account of Anna Harpin’s ways of looking at and critiquing the practices of diagnosis and
Marie Allitt reviews the workshop ‘Sensing the Machine-Body Interface’, hosted by the Science Museum on 11th July 2019. Have you ever listened to the beat of your own heart? How often do you think
‘Representing the Medical Body’ took place at the Science Museum, London, on 28thMarch 2019. Words: Fiona Johnstone. Pictures: Lucy Lyons. “Did you notice that everyone was constantly talking about their feelings?” asked a colleague,
