Impressions

Impressions traces the residue of the body—its weight, its absences, its repetitions—on the disposable surfaces of clinical care. Each sheet of medical exam table paper bears the imprint of a body laid bare: pressure points, contours, smudges, folds. Some carry handwritten fragments of text; others remain silent.

Hanging in a suspended row, the papers float. They echo the ghostliness of the exam room: ephemeral, impersonal, intimate. The installation invites viewers to walk among the sheets, as if stepping into the space between patient and practitioner—between vulnerability and scrutiny. The repetition of form and spacing mimics the aesthetic of institutional standardization while making space for softness, for breath.

This work emerges from my research into the history of American gynecology and the enduring gendered dynamics of medical care. The use of real exam table paper—disposable, crinkling, fragile—foregrounds the tension between what is recorded and what is discarded. Here, the body is not an object of diagnosis, but a subject of memory and resistance.