Sphere Dance
Abstract
In my work Sphere Dance, I am exploring multiple sclerosis, the autoimmune illness that I suffer from. This project is part of my artistic research conducted within my doctoral thesis, Disease in Photography and Its Visuality. As a bearer of the disease and an artist, I examine my illness through personal experience, time, space, emotion, my body, family, scientific facts, and interviews with experts—and my visual/photographic reflection is a key component of this approach. I use indirect means of expression through staged photographs and collages rather than documentary photography, as I deem my experience with the illness hardly transferrable. Even though the disease is always present with me, it remains, in many ways, abstract. I decided to work through this deeply personal life theme to gain distance and perspective on both the disease and myself. I decompose my experience into the smallest details to consciously explore and process aspects that I am unable to perceive clearly in the everyday rhythm of life.
Key Words
Art Therapy. Artistic Research. Autoethnography. Illness. Interpretation. Multiple Sclerosis. Photography.
Vlčková, P. (2025). Sphere Dance. European Journal of Media, Art & Photography, 13(2), 6-35. https://doi.org/10.34135/ejmap-25-02-01
Sphere Dance © 2025 by Petra Vlčková is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
