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Con­tent warn­ing: The fol­low­ing text is about seri­ous ill­ness and death.

Dear friends and acquain­tances of Judith,

with great sad­ness but also grat­i­tude, I would like to inform you that my part­ner Judith Schoss­böck passed away on Decem­ber 10th, 2024, in the pres­ence of her loved ones. She leaves behind an abun­dance of love and con­nec­tions that we will car­ry into the world and live in her memory.

Judith’s ill­ness was pro­gres­sive (very severe ME/CFS, cere­brospinal flu­id leak, very severe MCAS, pan­cre­at­ic dis­ease, hor­mon­al dis­or­ders, POTS…) and unfor­tu­nate­ly could not be stopped even by the best med­ical team. Her ill­ness has been steadi­ly wors­en­ing since 2021, until in the end there was not much room left. Even the inges­tion of water led to mas­sive phys­i­cal reac­tions in the last phase, and her lim­it was already exceed­ed by drink­ing or wash­ing or speak­ing. Peo­ple in the room were also dif­fi­cult to bear.

Judith was in a per­ma­nent crash at the end, even though her ill­ness was very dynam­ic at times and she was able to write a lot and kept find­ing new, beau­ti­ful things. Hos­pi­tal stays were no longer pos­si­ble, how­ev­er, and she react­ed with severe symp­toms and long reac­tions even to sim­ple elec­trolyte infu­sions, tem­per­a­ture changes and harm­less odour. She could no longer try med­ica­tion, which always led to a per­ma­nent dete­ri­o­ra­tion of her con­di­tion, most recent­ly trig­gered by liq­uid and food.

Judith lived an active and full life with a great love for peo­ple, sci­ence, art and activism, and achieved incred­i­ble things even with her seri­ous ill­ness. She com­plet­ed her dis­ser­ta­tion on health activism, found­ed the Black Ferk Stu­dio with me, and real­ized var­i­ous art projects, e.g. the first inter­na­tion­al exhi­bi­tion on ME/CFS in the Kün­stler­haus Vien­na. She used art and activism to help oth­ers and con­tribute to their vis­i­bil­i­ty, and, as an artist, cre­at­ed an impres­sive num­ber of paint­ings and draw­ings, some of which received awards.

She did all of this from her bed. She loved life and peo­ple with all her heart and was loved and appre­ci­at­ed by her fam­i­ly and friends. Despite every­thing, she felt very con­nect­ed to the world and was com­mit­ted to achiev­ing some­thing good.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the unlucky com­bi­na­tion of ill­ness­es ulti­mate­ly left her with no choice. There were sim­ply too many prob­lems that even a cre­ative, intel­li­gent and cheer­ful per­son like Judith could not over­come. Until the end, she was fear­less and brave and tried not to let her symp­toms deter­mine her.

The online com­mu­ni­ties and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of includ­ing peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties were very impor­tant to Judith. With this in mind, we will soon pro­vide fur­ther infor­ma­tion on ways to par­tic­i­pate in farewell rit­u­als and cel­e­bra­tions. Every­one is welcome.

The Black Ferk Stu­dio will also live on and con­tin­ue to realise some of her ideas.

Judith’s words to you:
Until the end, I had the uncon­di­tion­al love of my fam­i­ly and part­ner as well as my best friends and a com­mu­ni­ty by my side who always found cre­ative ways to include me. We would cer­tain­ly have thought of many more things if this beast had not been so out­ra­geous­ly pro­gres­sive. I loved every­thing so much — about the lit­tle world in my bed and the big one out there, about our con­nec­tions. For exam­ple, how I dec­o­rat­ed every­thing here and kept find­ing cre­ative lit­tle things. I am proud of every sin­gle one of my pic­tures and our activ­i­ties and I car­ry you all in my heart. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this atyp­i­cal pro­gres­sion left me no oth­er way, but I also saw this inten­sive process as an act of love with a lot of under­stand­ing and as a gift.

You will find me every­where in our mem­o­ries, and in every hap­py piglet you meet 😉

My life has made a lot of sense to me, from my adven­tures in far­away coun­tries, to sci­ence, to art, and final­ly activism from bed — I have always been con­nect­ed to these areas. I feel like I have lived and loved for five or more, thanks in part to you. My life is not a trag­ic one, because it was full of won­der­ful things right up to the end, and I hope to have left some­thing good behind and cre­at­ed some­thing beau­ti­ful.
Please do not take my sto­ry as a rea­son for less hope: this ill­ness gives most peo­ple more oppor­tu­ni­ties and sta­bil­i­ty than it did for me. And I had a par­tic­u­lar­ly insid­i­ous com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent ill­ness­es. Above all, a drug sen­si­tiv­i­ty that is unparalleled.

Cel­e­brate life, enjoy the small and big things: I hope my sto­ry can be seen as that of a per­son who made the best of the cards she was dealt. Thank you so much to my fam­i­ly, my love, my net­work, every­one I’ve ever been in love with, all my friends. Love as much as you can.