luna scales

Memories by Touch

video 18:54 min. 2023

The video work Memories by Touch is based on childhood memories of hospitals and medical examinations, a recurring theme in works inspired by investigations of doctor-patient relationships from a personal as well as broader cultural-historical and ideological perspective. Scales has interviewed four women born with a congenital muscular or neurological diseases. Growing up all four of them were under close medical observation. In the interviews Scales has focussed on creating the kind of language used when your body is under constant scrutiny. This creates a narrative that goes beyond the examination room to explore family grief and vulnerability, confrontational encounters with other children, and attempts to exist on the same terms as others. Scales’ works are primarily video based. She explores the poetic dimension of diagnostics to create a language that goes beyond the objective science of medicine.

Link to excerpt of the video. For access to the full version, please contact the artist.