The standard enlightenment representation of the human body is of a singular, upright, able-bodied, autonomous man. Dr. Nora Heidorn’s medical humanities and visual culture research project Being Horizontal is concerned with imagery of reclined and inclined bodies that contest this ideal. The philosopher Adriana Cavarero, whose book Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude (2016) has informed my thinking, theorises inclination as a model of the subject that is mutually dependent with others and situated in its world. Being Horizontal collects images from the history of healthcare and medicine, visual culture, and contemporary art to reflect on what it means to look at reclined bodies, drawing on feminist philosophy, care ethics, and an intersectional framework. In addition to the affects and knowledges that horizontality produces in the reclining subject, what does their representation produce in their witnesses? What do representation of inclined and reclined bodies tell us about relationality and agency; about our shared responsibility to take care of each other and our world?

Dr. Nora Heidorn has been developing this project through curatorial practice, publications, and lectures since 2022. It began as an exhibition proposal and has taken different public forms. Being Horizontal addresses core medical humanities, sexuality studies, and body theory themes: health, disability, gender, race, rest, sexuality, and representation. Since autumn 2025, she is undertaking research for a monograph at the University of Vienna and in parallel, working as Assistant Curator on the forthcoming exhibition Horizontal: The Politics and Poetics of the Sickbed at the Berlin Museum of Medical History.