how to photograph a scoliotic patient

An Investigation into Scoliosis,
Female Identity, and the Medical Gaze.

Client

THEBOOKSHOW
Woong Soak Teng

Discipline

Print, Editorial,
Book Design

Assembly

Custom Slipcase + 2 books
160pp — 180MM x 297MM

Date

2022

Client

Disciplines

Assembly

Date

THEBOOKSHOW
Woong Soak Teng

Print, Editorial,
Book Design

Custom Slipcase + 2 books
160pp — 180MM x 297MM

2022

Through arrangement of visual and tactile materials and collaboration with other scoliotic individuals, this ongoing exercise attempts to make sense of various inventions of spinal interventions, the role of image-making in the medical field, the male gaze towards the female body and human experiences of living with spinal deformity.

This project was produced in close collaboration with Singaporean artist Woong Soak Teng

○ Exhibited in Objectifs Lower Gallery, Singapore, 2022

Encased within a custom slipcase, reminiscent of a scoliosis braces, the contents within are tightly squeezed, with their spines facing the opening.

The publication is comprised of 2 books. The first book is a composition of various material, photographs by the artist and archival images and text extracted from medical journals.

The 2nd book is a collection of various interviews made between the Artist and other scoliotic individuals, exploring various themes and stories about growing up with this condition.

The book was meticulously sequenced so that the visible stitch-lines every 16 pages would run through a spinal image, further deepening the narrative of the scars left behind corrective spinal surgery.

Inspired and informed by the archival extracts and references that the artist used to juxtapose her raw photography, the book was designed with a medical archival aesthetic, with cold and technical details.

To evoke the tightness of a body within a brace, the contents and images expanded to take up as much space as possible, with razor thin margins and gutters. Removing breathing space, quite literally.

In the 2nd book that contains extracts of interviews between the artist and scoliotic patients, blocks of text were designed to suggest a spinal deformity in the book's spine, and in the text block's margin.