Outside room 8

Geert had been suffering from abdominal pain for a while and it was getting worse. He had a rectal bleeding on the toilet and lost two liters of blood. After a few days, the doctor told Geert the bad news. He had a tumor in his colon, liver and other parts of his body it couldn't be cured, After a second and third opinion the image had drastically adjusted. "It was all very strange and confusing, but after a few intense weeks the oncologists contended that I could survive.” After the first surgery where they removed the half of his colon he underwent three chemotherapy treatments. In a second operation, pieces from his liver and gallbladder had been removed. Geert’s cancer is genetically determined. His father carried the Lynch syndrome and passed away in November in the same year his son was treated for the colon cancer.
When Geert was first diagnosed with cancer, Lotte asked if she could make a portrait photograph of him, “Pure” without poisonous medicine in his body. We chose analogue photography to represent the three most common cancer treatments: chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. We subjected film roll, negatives and prints to the same procedures that Geert’s body was enduring. After the chemo, Geert's urine was used to soak the film rolls. 4x5 Inch film was radiated at an Amsterdam hospital. Partially burned negatives have become stand-ins for surgical procedures, the violence of both illness and ‘recovery’ on the body and eventually on the mind as well.