No Gravity

This project tells the story of an invisible illness, so rare that it is not yet well diagnosed after 4 years. I photographed myself and my pain, to explain that invisible doesn’t mean inexistent, but also to underline the importance of water that relieves pain, and the importance of not giving up.

My illness affects the autonomic nervous system, joints, muscles and nerves of legs and arms. There is no cure, just a lot of physiotherapy in water and many drugs to slow down the process of degeneration. I fight every day to stay up, but this fight is not seen, from the outside I look like a normal 23 year old girl.

The hospitals’ waiting rooms are crowded with all my “why”, but immersed in water, gravity decreases, I manage to feel normal. Pain eases off. I no longer feel the weight of my body on my joints. Nor that of my thoughts.

Everything is possible again. Everything is back to normal. Anger and resignation give

way to calm and hope, through the water I’m back to life.

I fight not only physically. I am beyond the body, the disease is not what defines me.

Photography has helped me to express all this, self-portraits are successful where mirrors fail: to look inside myself.

I started this project 2 years ago but it is ongoing.

Photographing my body helped me to accept it, to become aware of my pain and turn it into something that drives me to do more than what others do.