Monika Pietrzak-Franger’s talk is part of this semester’s lecture series “Visual Culture, Photography and Medicine: Bodies, Technologies and the Politics of Seeing” and will be held on Wednesday, 20 May, 18:30-20:00 pm, at Hs.C1, Campus AAKH (Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Vienna).

The effects of Long Covid remain palpable worldwide, despite the official ‘end of the pandemic’. This continues to raise questions about the individual, social and political dimensions of this condition. Long Covid is an exemplary case for a growing number of chronic, often invisible conditions that place those afflicted in a precarious position, caught between medical uncertainty, social stigmatisation and institutional overload. Based on interviews and jointly developed photographic material with those affected in Austria, Monika Pietrzak-Franger‘s talk will shed light on everyday life with Long Covid. It will combine Cultural Studies analysis with artistic documentation, whilst offering intimate and nuanced insights into the lives of patients. In this way, dominant narratives of illness can be critiqued from the perspective of those affected, and structural gaps in health and social systems can be exposed. This talk argues the case for a forward-looking vision for social and medical infrastructures to address the challenges of chronic illness in the 21st century.