Vessel - Frances Bukovsky

The Six Feet Project is excited to announce the release of Frances Bukovsky’s debut monograph, Vessel, published by Fifth Wheel Press. Order your copy here.

I created Vessel in the months after my total hysterectomy in January of 2020. The book explores healing my identity post-hysterectomy after years of misinformed medical treatment, rejected expectations of motherhood, and the physical and mental effects of living within a chronically ill body. Through these images I grieve for over years spent bleeding for months on end, relationships made uncomfortable by blood, endless disabling pain, and the hormonal nightmare I underwent from both disease and attempted treatments. I also explore the changed landscape of my body and what it feels like to experience gender divorced from expected reproduction.

The observation hospital stay after my hysterectomy was exhausting and eventful. My body was weak after a year spent battling acute illness and 2 other surgeries. I made this image after a night spent monitored closely as my blood pressure and heart rate danced around dangerously low numbers.

The reoccurring symptom that had intensified over 7 years to a crescendo in the period of time before my hysterectomy was the knife-like pain that pierced my abdomen. In making this image with a beet, I discovered a deep emotional and symbolic connection to the root. Beets are historically symbols of fertility and aphrodisiacs, and they also have a blood-red color to them. Being of Polish decent, I found an ancestral connection as well. I wanted to honor the women in my family who have struggled with reproductive diseases before me.

Being chronically ill is both laborious and draining. At times it seems like I put a lot of energy into my well being for very little return. The diagnostic process for my reproductive diseases, first for endometriosis, then for endometrial hyperplasia, the diagnosis that led to my hysterectomy, largely became a process of research and persistence. After years of going to doctors who would give me misinformation about my own body, I felt betrayed and ignorant when I discovered endometriosis can only be successfully treated by a specialist. Finding that specialist was hours upon hours of research, calling different offices, and trying to find someone who was near enough to drive to who would also take my insurance. Then it was enduring tests, driving 3 hours for appointments, and finally multiple surgeries.

When I make work regarding illness or the experience of being sick, I try to explore the complexity that accompanies disease. Besides reproductive diseases I live with several autoimmune conditions including Sjogren’s Syndrome with multiple system involvement. All areas of my life are informed by my health, from the extensive list of allergies and food sensitivities that restrict my diet, to the amount of rest time that I need on a daily basis. Though Vessel focuses on a particular event in my medical history, it also touches on how connected every health issue is in my life.

Vessel was shot largely in quarantine. 2020 was a year of intense change for me before the pandemic and proved to continue to challenge the way that I interact and cope with both my body and the outside world.

Frances Bukovsky is a lens based artist and photographer who was born in rural Upstate NY and currently lives in Port Salerno, FL. She earned a BFA with Honors in Photography and Imaging from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2018.Identity, family, place, and memory are intrinsically linked to the experience of chronic illness in Bukovsky’s work where she pries apart daily routine and intimate spaces to explore her relationship to physical and mental health. Bukovsky's debut monograph, Vessel, was published by Fifth Wheel Press in 2020.