Vessel

A contested illness is one without defined biomedical causes, diagnostic methods or agreed treatments. These diseases are biomedically invisible yet life changing for the people affected, who often feel abandoned by the systems we rely on to take care of us. Lyme disease is one of the most highly contested diseases and divides the medical community the world over.

Vessel will not seek to address any of the uncertainties around Lyme disease, but will focus on the experience of living with a highly contested illness and use it as a lens through which to explore the limitations of the frameworks we have to understand our bodies, and how these ideological frameworks influence our identity and sense of self.

Developed during my time as artist-in-residence on the AiRdrop residency programme from satellite, supported by Arts Council England.