Treated for a rare tumor, the young photographer of Polish origin has transformed her illness and her body, scrutinized by science, into a remarkable work of art.
In this work Izabela Jurcewicz deals with traumatic memories written in the body on a cellular level. She was an interorgan tumor patient, one of 300 cases worldwide, where science had few answers to the cause and how to proceed.
This experience of a patient being 'on view', researched and scanned, coined her relationship with the camera and ways of seeing a human. These medical experiences, especially surgeries, live as a photographic negative in her body and life, which henceforth produce images, including the ones that form this book. In the act of return, Izabela replaces the invasive surgical instrument with her camera as a receptive device to register, merge and enable a ritual of healing.
To synchronize the level of knowledge in her body and mind, she reperforms the trauma under her conditions and rewrites her memories, aiming to change them at a cellular level. At the same time this work gives her perspective to see and support her father, who at that time is going through intensive cancer treatment. The project highlights the process of emphatic engagement that brings dimensionality to the body and self again and grows a capacity to join with the suffering of others.
"By rewriting her story in a photographic face-to-face, by taking back her body and telling the story on her own terms, by creating a link with suffering but also a link with life and with others (in this instance with her own father, treated for cancer), the work of Izabel Jurcewicz deploys the full power of enhanced auto-fiction." - Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents 2020
About the Author: Izabela's work reflects on a body as a living archive, using personal perspective to approach issues regarding identity, memory and health. Izabela's works have been exhibited in over thirty exhibitions, including such venues as the International Center of Photography, ClampArt, Baxter St CCNY, School of Visual Arts Flatiron Gallery in New York and RISD Museum. She is a recipient of Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation Award 2021 by International Center of Photography, a laureate of Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents 2020 by Luma Arles & ENSP, COCA Center for Contemporary Artists 2020 finalist and a runner-up in New Delta Review's Ryan R. Gibbs Photography Contest 2018. Her works were presented during such international photography festivals as Unseen Amsterdam, Month of Photography in Bratislava (OFF), TIFF Festival in Wroclaw, 12th Fotofestival in Lodz, 8th Biennale of Photography in Poznan. Izabela graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019 with an MFA in Photography and is currently a lecturer at the University of Arts in Poznan in the Photography Department.
