Frida Lisa Carstensen Jersø

 Sick and disabled peoples’ lives are often regarded negatively, almost exclusively through the lens of suffering. They become either victims or heroes, with little space left for them to assert their own identities. While Carstensen Jersø doesn’t shy away from showing difficult aspects of her experience, she nevertheless offers an entirely different perspective on illness and disability, one that allo Frida Forever can perhaps best be described as a self-portrait assembled from fleeting fragments of the protagonist’s life: her trials and pain, yet also her joy, the exuberance of youth, love and friendship, presented side-by-side without judgement. ws the subject to rise to the fore, and to take control of the narrative. Frida Forever celebrates life, with all its pleasure and pain. This is a rallying call to live fully, unrepentantly, in one’s own terms.  

Similar themes are explored in Crip, a new body of work which consists of self-portraits and still lives. Yet here the emphasis is less on one’s environment and infrastructures of care, and more on explorations of the self. The photographer poses for the camera, and as the outfits change so does the persona she projects: a super-woman, an angel, a bride, a person like everyone else. Details such as a tiara re-appear in the still lives, where everyday objects, the paraphernalia of sick and disabled lives, are recast as items of great significance.