In Sick, Frida Lisa Carstensen Jersø explores the boundaries of illness, the body, and technology through various photographic media. 

Drawing from personal experiences with chronic illness, her work exists in the tension between the personal and the universal, between fragility and resilience as a sick, disabled young person.

The exhibition combines classical photography with medical imaging technologies. Through self-portraits Cartensen Jersø reveals the body in different stages of illness, recovery, and introspection – a body that carries both pain and strength. Alongside these images, she depicts various hospital environments with her camera, showing sterile beds, monitors, and medical equipment that offer a stark aesthetic contrast to the body. 

These images stem from the artist’s book Frida Forever, where documentary and staged photography intertwine to merge lived experience with the medical gaze.

Sick navigates the intersections of fascination and discomfort, science and aesthetics. Influenced by technology and crip theory, the works challenge conventional narratives of the disabled body—not as something to be pitied, but as something powerful, beautiful, and full of stories worth telling.

Finnish Museum of Photography

4.4.-1.6.2025

Tue-Fri 11.00-19.00

Sat-Sun 11.00-18.00

Admission fee 0-16€