The Geography of Illness is a participatory archive documenting chronic illness through the material culture on the bedroom nightstand. Since 2015, the project has grown to include over 80 nightstand portraits from people living with chronic conditions globally, alongside a year-long self-portrait documenting the daily care practices with autoimmune disease. By photographing what people actually keep beside their beds: medications, memory objects, spiritual tools, and improvised devices, the project creates alternative archives to clinical documentation, revealing patient knowledge through objects, ritual, and daily care labor.

Exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité (Berlin), the work sits at the intersection of feminist disability studies, medical humanities, and documentary practice. The nightstand becomes both witness and archive: a space where the lived experience of chronic illness is made visible.

The Geography of Illness Comprises of:

• The Nightstand Collective: Over 80 nightstand portraits from global participants.

• A Nightstand Still Life: A year-long documentation of the artist’s nightstand.