Frances Bukovsky, image courtesy of the artist
Damaris Athene: Could you start off by telling me a bit by yourself?
Frances Bukovsky: Sure, my name is Frances Bukovsky and I use she/they pronouns. I am a photographer and multimedia artist currently living in South Florida, though I grew up in upstate New York. My work is centred around my lived experience of chronic illness and disability.
DA: What drew you to Florida from New York?
FB: I moved for the weather, actually. I have a really bad cold intolerance. So every winter I was just sitting inside. Once I was able to go to college, I was like, I'm picking the warmest state!
DA: That makes sense! Can you tell me a bit more about your practice?
FB: As well as photography, I also do multimedia or video, art and illustration. I'm interested in all forms of photography: film, digital and camera-less processes like anthotypes and lumen printing.
DA: What are they? Can you enlighten me?
FB: Lumen printing is printing directly onto photographic paper, using the sun or UV boxes with a negative or putting materials directly onto photo paper. Then you fix it and there's no development process. You've got pretty much a unique print that has interacted with the environment. Anthotypes use plant matter as photo sensitive material.
DA: Wow!
FB: Yeah! I’ll put beet juice directly on watercolour paper and expose it in the sun over several hours. With that process, there's no way to fix it. So it will eventually fade and the image will be gone.
Methotrexate, 2018, Digital Photograph
From the series ‘A Family of Complicated Bodies’
Image courtesy of the artist
DA: That sounds like an amazing process to work with and kind of poetic that it eventually disappears to nothing. In your statement you mention documenting family ties, and also your relationship with living spaces and your own body. I was wondering if you could expand on that?
FB: Yeah, so I'm working with chronic illnesses as a subject and trying to communicate lived experience. A lot of the time illness gets contextualised within the medical field, or doctors offices or hospitals. I've worked in those spaces and documented either treatments that I've had, or spaces that I have been in during treatment, but I'm much more interested in how being sick affects my day to day life and where it shows up so that I can communicate how chronic illness is intertwined in every aspect of my life. I come from a family where each person has a different chronic illness. I feel like I'm in this unique situation of everybody's experiencing their own health issues and trying to figure things out. It affects the family dynamics so much because we're all trying to figure out very separate things, but we’re also being interdependent as well.
DA: So do you all live together?
FB: Yeah. Especially since the Covid virus. My brother moved back and so we've all been in one room, or one house not one room. Sometimes it feels like one room. *laughs*
DA: I'm sure it does. *laughs* Are there times when you're all going through like bouts of more intense illness at the same time?
FB: Yeah. For example, my father had revision surgery on his spinal cord stimulator at a time where I was undergoing a full neurological workup, so sometimes things just overlap. The dynamic has changed over the years as we are all adults now. We joke around that we take turns being sick. We have a very dark humour to cope with everything.
DA: I guess you have to, you can either laugh or cry.
FB: Exactly!
24 Hour Observation (My Heart is Quickly Beating), 2020, Digital Photograph
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: Do you find it a cathartic process using your art to explore these difficulties that you're having every day?
FB: Definitely, and I think it's helped us as a family communicate with each other. It's funny, a lot of times people ask me like, does your family consent to all of this? And the big answer is, absolutely. We talk very much about the work. It's gotten to the point where if something happens, somebody will ask me, Oh, do you want to take a picture of this? Or, look here's my surgical incision, take a picture! It's also helped us really see each other, where we are at each moment. To just recognise that we're all going through things, but we are going through them together.
DA: It's amazing that you're able to support each other through that, although I'm sure it's extremely difficult at times as well. What motivated you to explore all of this with photography, and all these alternative photographic processes?
FB: I've always been around very casual family photography; my grandmother always had a disposable camera at every family event. I've always been really interested in photography. I went to school originally for illustration, but it just didn't stick and photography, I don't know what it is about it, maybe it's the immediacy or the fact that it is so heavily reliant on being in the moment and present? It really interacts with the environment that you're in at the time. Photography has always been the art form that I most return to.
DA: Yeah, and that link to reality and documentation as well which is very pertinent to your work. You haven't got that step of removal that other mediums have.
FB: Definitely. I sometimes work in that documentary space, which gives me a chance to create an emotional distance between myself and whatever situation that I'm documenting. Not so much that I cut off those emotions from it, but more so that I can take that image and then reflect on it at a later time, so that I can gain more understanding of the moment, maybe in a way that if I didn't go through the process of making the images I might not have.
Hemosiderin Deposit, 2021, Lumen with MRI Negative
8” x 10”
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: No, that completely makes sense. Has your exploration of self portraiture changed the way that you relate to your own body?
FB: Absolutely. I went through a decent span of time where my experiences with illness really disassociated me from my body and I didn't connect to my body because a lot of the time I was trying to escape either pain or other symptoms. Portraiture really made me see what I was going through and it also made me reconnect with my body. It also just gave me the self validity that I didn't need somebody else to tell me that I was sick. I could see that I am sick. I am dealing with these things, and it gave me a lot of self confidence as far as advocating for myself with doctors or just being able to understand that this is my body, and I'm living in it.
DA: It must be such a difficult process having that autonomy taken from you in the medical process. I don't know if you've read the interview with Jing Su? She had a very traumatic experience with male doctors and not having any say in what was happening to her own body.
FB: Oh, absolutely, that interview resonated with me so much because of my own personal experiences with that, of losing autonomy, or even not being given information, and not being able to give informed consent for procedures. One of the diagnoses that really impacted my life was being diagnosed with endometriosis. I was misinformed throughout much of my early treatment of it and that led to a lot of medical decisions that had lasting negative impacts on me. Going through that process and using photography as a tool to not only see myself with that, and also connect with a larger community of people who are also dealing with endometriosis allowed me to access so much more research and information, which led to a much better track of treatment for me personally.
DA: Oh, that's so good, that something positive could come out of it. Because in the UK, I don't know whether it's any better or worse in the US, people can have it for 15 years without a diagnosis. Absolutely horrendous. The extremity of the pain isn't taken seriously.
FB: Absolutely. Yeah, it's really hard. Going back to the disassociation thing, after seven years of being told that what I'm experiencing is not actually what I'm experiencing, it became really hard for me to even say, well, no, I am dealing with this. Because all of those voices are right back in here in the backseat. I took my body back through image making. It let me say this is what I'm dealing with, it's not normal, and I need to seek help for it. It also let me access a level of intuition around my medical care that I had just ignored, because as I thought doctors knew best. Doctors can be brilliant, but they're human too. So they might not always know what's best for a specific patient, and sometimes a second opinion is needed.
Well Acquainted With the Floor, 2019, Digital Photograph
From the series ‘Where the Red Flowers Bloom’
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: Yeah, and gaining some control back. What barriers have you faced when to making art?
FB: A huge one tying into disability in general is the financial aspect of the art world. I come from a working class background. So although I was privileged enough to be able to attend art school, I came out with a lot of loans. Things like unpaid internships, cost of entry for competitions and institutions aren’t something I can afford as a disabled person with very unsteady income who is also having to pay for healthcare. Then also just labour in general being disabled. I have to really evaluate free labor because I don't have the energy levels that somebody else might have. I can't participate in burnout culture at all. Burnout for me leads to hospitalisation. I think burnout is just unhealthy for everybody, in all honesty. Even going through college and being told I have to work at a certain pace, and you have to stay relevant and you have to produce and produce and produce - I just can't do that. I'm really interested in creating and exploring ways that the art world can rebel against that and we can honour artists while also honouring their physical and mental health too.
DA: Definitely, that’s so important. How do you usually work and how has that been affected by the pandemic?
FB: This question was so interesting for me to reflect on, because pre-pandemic, for about a year beforehand, I was already in and out of isolation with my own health issues going through surgeries. I wasn't working as much then. I do freelance video editing as my day job, so that didn't really change much. Before that I was working a lot doing portraiture work with other people. Now my practice is exclusively within my house, within my family, it's with myself. It's narrowed a lot, but I think I've also gained a lot of clarity, because I've really had to just sit with the question of what can I make within the confines of my home.
DA: For a lot of people I've spoken to it's been a really helpful moment to, like you say, get clarity and hone in on what's actually important. When people see your work, what would you like them to get from it?
FB: I'm always interested in generating more empathy for not just people with disability or chronic illness, but for everybody in general. I also want to address what illness “looks like.” All of my illnesses are ‘invisible’ so I don't look disabled, which is a privilege and at the same time, fighting for access for things can be more difficult. I have to provide a lot more documentation or reasoning behind well, why do you need that accommodation. I’m also thinking about ways that we can create cultures of accommodation and access for everybody, so that everybody is supported. Also I haven't really gone into this too much with my work yet, but I'm interested in working more with medical research and providing resources or at least give people a jumping off point for their own research, whether they're researching for themselves or for a loved one. And just creating more conversations about illness. It’s an uncomfortable subject, but what if we just talked about it and made it a little bit less uncomfortable? And a little bit less othered?
My Blood Holds Barometric Pressure, 2021, Digital Photograph
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: Definitely, and then you’d be able to share what you needed more easily. What's the most interesting or surprising response you've had to work?
FB: I'm not sure if this answers that, but the one that always excites me the most is when people reach out, specifically about ‘Where the Red Flowers Bloom,’ which still kind of boggles my mind, and say that my work helped them get a diagnosis, or put them on a track toward better treatment, because they didn’t know that what they were experiencing was more than the “bad period” doctors seem to blame symptoms on. ‘Where the Red Flowers Bloom’ is about my journey with endometriosis. Hearing that I have helped somebody in that way means so much, and also highlights how much work is left to be done in educating about diseases like endometriosis and other chronic diseases. Or when people say like, wow, these images make me feel a little bit less alone. That really excites me because sometimes illness can feel so isolating. Feeling that little bit of connection is so heartwarming to me.
DA: That sounds amazing and how wonderful for those people that they're able to come across your work and feel connected. Whose work inspires you?
FB: LaToya Ruby Frazier. I found her work in college, when I started getting diagnosed with autoimmune disease. Hearing that there was a working photographer who had Lupus was such an uplifting, hopeful moment for me. Her work is so incredible and intimate. Also, Rora Blue. They're an artist who focuses on queerness and disability, and they do a lot of installation work, which is just incredible. They speak a lot about ableism in culture in general. I'm always really inspired whenever I see one of their pieces. Then Panteha Abareshi, they do a lot of work about disability as well. Lots of installation work and books and really gets into the medical iconography that we often associate with illness. I think they do a beautiful job of translating internal experiences out into a visual form.
DA: That must be quite hard to do in your own work.
FB: Yeah, that’s definitely like the question that's always in my mind. How do I describe this thing that is invisible, and only I am experiencing it?
DA: Have you found it has got easier over time, or have you found working methodologies to try and tease that out?
FB: Yeah, definitely. For me, just making a lot of work has helped me see patterns of like, Okay, this is working or this isn't working as much. Then also, I think that's where more of the camera-less processes come in where I work with internal medical imaging, like MRIs and ultrasounds. I'm referencing medical diagnostic tools, and then also working with layering and writing to approach this internal thing and try to get it onto the paper.
Spine Anthotype, 2021, Beet Juice Anthotype with MRI Negative
5.5” x 8.5”
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: So has it been a more recent thing using these other processes?
FB: Yeah, over the pandemic. I was looking for something new and shiny to focus my energy on! Now it's growing more and more in my work.
DA: Nice! What projects have you been working on recently?
FB: Over the past year, I've been working with Life at Six Feet, which is a photographic community that came out of a need for community during Covid-19 and has grown into an incredible space of practice for photographers all over the world. We come together around topics that are relevant in the community’s lives and create and discuss work around those themes in a meaningful, supportive way. That has been one of the most fulfilling projects that I've worked on over the past year. Then more of my own personal work, I am working on a book with Korax Press Project. The working title is ‘Anatomy of a Homesick Body’. It's basically my perspective on the past year as a disabled, immunocompromised individual, and contains a lot of the work that I've made over the past year.
DA: I'm excited to see it, it sounds really interesting. What plans do you have for future work?
FB: I'm definitely interested in exhibitions as experiences and installation work. I’ve yet to see one of Panteha Abareshi's exhibitions, but the documentation from it is incredible and inspiring. Their work and Rora Blue’s work opened my eyes to a way of pushing into a more physical space with my own work. I would love to explore giving people a chance to experience, not what it's like to be sick, but maybe to find ways of creating experiences that describe these invisible things that I've been talking about.
DA: I would be very intrigued to see how that manifests. Thank you so much Frances. It’s been lovely meeting and talking to you.
FB: Thank you.
