Care

By Kennedy Healy & Marley Molkentin

Image Description: Kennedy, a white person with short brown hair on one side of her head, is facing towards the pink tiled walls of the shower with the back of her head, back, and butt filling the frame. They have a long scar down the center of their back and multiple back fat rolls. A metal chair back frames her body. Marley’s white hand and arm reach in from the left with a purple bar of soap. Tattoos are visible on her hand and arm.

Born from our relationship as a disabled person and their care worker, our photo project, Care, understands care as a form of access that is often denied. A critique of in-home state care systems, we seek to push through narratives around care as medical, burdensome, or heavy. Instead our images depict the intimacy and vulnerability in queer friendships rooted in care. Centering on a fat, disabled subject, the body becomes a site of mundanity and joy in this selection of photos, which were mainly shot in pre-vaccine pandemic times. This is one selection from hundreds of photos we shot that we hope provides a glimpse into how we understand care.

For a link to screen readable text and other resources, visit: https://linktr.ee/carephotoproject