SARAH SUDHOFF

I examine the body within a medical context by exploring through large-scale photographs and videos four main themes: pathological waste; containment of the body and its parts; fragmentation and violence against the body; a subject’s relationship to a specific environment. Following my surgery in 2004 for cervical cancer, I began to photograph and perform in hospitals, morgues, medical museums and my doctors’ offices. 

The photographs and videos focus attention on the physical and emotional traces cancer and surgery can leave on the body while challenging the prescribed treatment for recovery and role of the patient. Through self-portraiture and self-performance, private rituals are revealed to the public only through documentation. Personal experiences will illness and mortality are intertwined. The same character’s presence in many of the works allows for an introspective look at these, insome cases unfamiliar worlds in comparison to one another. 

The repetition of spaces, procedures and a central character highlights and reshapes our thoughts on medical environments, the treatment of our bodies in these spaces, what role we have at protecting our bodies and the lengths we will go to achieve a sense of health.