In The Permanent Tourist, I pair my photographs with medical imaging from my brain cancer diagnosis and treatment, including the first confirming scan of my tumor, an ultrasound prior to egg retrieval surgery, and a scan of a baby tooth later lost to chemotherapy. Once used for diagnosis and monitoring, these images are repositioned within a personal and constructed visual language. Removed from their clinical function, they become tools to explore the distance between medical interpretation and lived experience.

As a patient, the body is translated into data. You are measured, categorized, and tracked through scans, charts, and appointments. Over time, this clinical framework reshapes self-perception. During a formative period in my life, I came to understand my body not through the curiosity and exploration typical of being in my twenties, but through fragmented medical images and data. The tension between scan and photograph reflects the gap between how I was seen and how I experienced being in my body. Within this work, internal and external worlds begin to blur, destabilizing the authority of medical imaging and opening space for a more subjective, embodied understanding.