countermask

Fatigue is one of the most exasperating effects I endure while living with Type 1 Diabetes. In the United States, fatigue impacts up to 45% of the population, shaped by intensified labor expectations, limited social safety nets, Long COVID, and autoimmune conditions. Clinically defined as debilitating exhaustion, fatigue is often dismissed culturally as laziness or indifference. Its nebulous nature resists clear representation, leaving few visual or conceptual tools for understanding it. Through alternative photographic processes, performance, and sculptural strategies, I work to render fatigue visible as a sensation that reshapes how bodies endure and move through daily life. These approaches engage contemporary disability studies while confronting photography’s history of misrepresenting the body. The resulting exhibition centers fatigue as a valid, complex experience, insisting on its recognition beyond stigma or simplification. countermask merges portraiture and performance with light-sensitive paper and copper to investigate endurance and the embodied experience of fatigue.