Judith Schossböck

“And some are in the dark, and oth­ers are in the light. But one only sees those in the light; those in the dark, one does­n’t see.”
(Bertolt Brecht, The Three­pen­ny Opera)

ME/CFS is often invis­i­ble, but most of the time very notice­able for the loved ones around. The dark­er times are most­ly hid­den from soci­ety, be it du to shame, with­draw­al of those affect­ed from social life, or because suf­fer­ers are often too weak to doc­u­ment these moments, let alone to express them, as even strong emo­tions can lead to symp­tom wors­en­ing. This work is an attempt to, despite a pre­car­i­ous exis­tence in a prison of one’s body and brain, hold onto the kind of free­dom that remains: the choice to decide about what should be visible.

In “The light and the dark” Judith Schoss­böck doc­u­ments her “crash­es” and good times with a mini polaroid print­er. Most pho­tographs were bright­ened for the print. The added frames and signs under­line the feel­ing of a moment, but can also be under­stood as iron­ic ref­er­ence: of a sit­u­a­tion, in which emoti­cons often remain the only thing to say. As lit­tle visu­al nar­ra­tives the polaroids also stand for a lib­er­a­tion from the neces­si­ty to always present one­self at one’s best.