Injection Site: Making Vaccines Visible
Linda Alterwitz | NV, United States
Photographer: Linda Alterwitz
Exhibit Title: Injection Site: Making Vaccines Visible
Location: NV, United States
Using a high-resolution thermal camera, I photograph COVID-19 injection sites on participants’ arms any time from fifteen minutes to four weeks after receiving the vaccine. Documented are individual immunological responses to the vaccine, revealing traces of humanity's involuntary reaction to vaccination while questioning the limits of personal choice versus public health.
Very early on in the coronavirus pandemic, I’d begun thinking deeply about how art could make a substantial impact upon the politically charged global medical crisis. When the first COVID-19 vaccines were distributed in January 2021, I used a high-resolution thermal camera to photograph the arms of participants after vaccination. I have since photographed over 180 participants, documenting and creating a visual trace of each person’s reaction to the vaccine.
However, rather than providing a simple scientific record, the ethereal images serve as evocative statements about individuality and our collective humanity. Some photographs reveal heat radiating and spreading through an arm, while others reveal very little. The surreal quality of each portrait invites viewers to engage with difficult subject matter, illuminating the fact that vaccines are not neutral to our bodies.
Even after the government declared an end to COVID-19 in 2023, attitudes toward vaccines continued to be a dividing factor both socially and politically, testing the limits of personal choice versus public health. By 2022, I’d expanded the parameters of this project and started photographing the arms of participants who received any vaccine, including Mpox, HPV, shingles, pneumonia, hepatitis B, and flu. It was always my intention that this series would ignite conversation and inspire the viewer to pause, consider the actions and feelings of others, and to strive toward a mutual understanding that would help promote and preserve health and wellbeing for all of us.
Linda Alterwitz
www.lindaalterwitz.com
linda@lindaalterwitz.com
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