Project X, a series of images, is an attempt to make invisible illness more visible in a more obvious way than before. I'm especially concerned with fibromyalgia, ME and other illnesses that cause fatigue. The research includes images of myself and other personal photographs, copyright imagery, and occasionally some text. Please read more about it here: http://www.vivimaricarpelan.com/PROJECT-X.html or follow the process on my blog: http:www.blogspot.com/vivi-mariandmartinart.blogspot.com. You can also get updates about this on my official FB page: http://www.facebook.com/ArteDea.

Project X, a series of images, is an attempt to make invisible illness more visible in a more obvious way than before. I'm especially concerned with fibromyalgia, ME and other illnesses that cause fatigue. The research includes images of myself and other personal photographs, copyright imagery, and occasionally some text. Please read more about it here: http://www.vivimaricarpelan.com/PROJECT-X.html or follow the process on my blog: http:www.blogspot.com/vivi-mariandmartinart.blogspot.com. You can also get updates about this on my official FB page: http://www.facebook.com/ArteDea.

Project X, a series of images, is an attempt to make invisible illness more visible in a more obvious way than before. I'm especially concerned with fibromyalgia, ME and other illnesses that cause fatigue. The research includes images of myself and other personal photographs, copyright imagery, and occasionally some text. Please read more about it here: http://www.vivimaricarpelan.com/PROJECT-X.html or follow the process on my blog: http:www.blogspot.com/vivi-mariandmartinart.blogspot.com. You can also get updates about this on my official FB page: http://www.facebook.com/ArteDea.

Project X, a series of images, is an attempt to make invisible illness more visible in a more obvious way than before. I'm especially concerned with fibromyalgia, ME and other illnesses that cause fatigue. The research includes images of myself and other personal photographs, copyright imagery, and occasionally some text. Please read more about it here: http://www.vivimaricarpelan.com/PROJECT-X.html or follow the process on my blog: http:www.blogspot.com/vivi-mariandmartinart.blogspot.com. You can also get updates about this on my official FB page: http://www.facebook.com/ArteDea.

This piece is about insomnia, which in severe cases involves constant threats of medication not working any more, while being pumped up with habit forming medication in the first place, of the subject going insane with severe cognitive and physical impairment with physical flare ups due to lack of sufficient good quality sleep, and never getting any really useful help from the medical establishment. On top of this there's the sleep schedule which always goes wrong, ie. something disturbs one's routines and tips the wagon so you end up sleeping/dozing/lying around well into the afternoon and always feeling the day goes by while you're simply useless. Managing a condition that happens when you're not looking, is like walking a tight rope, knowing you could fall any time. This piece is part of Project X. When I thought of the name including the word "impossibility" it became a reference to titles by Damien Hearst and his rather (in my mind) undeserved financial success.

This is a symbolic image about childhood trauma and the need to move on after years of nurturing the wounds.

The image contains emotionally laden texts about the meaning of my own life. It also speaks of the attempt to find one's centre of gravity and equilibrium when stress, ill health and the need to achieve success and recognition are constantly looming over my existence. It's a combat against entropy.

This should speak for itself...

What my message really boils down to is feeling neglected and bypassed by society, but there is also a strength in being able to have an outsider's point of view. As usual, I have hoped to express a paradox or double message of suffering and alienation but also strength of character and a possible insight into the deeper layers of life. People with disabilities are not just weak individuals. Very often illness can teach them lessons of life that other people can only dream of (if they care, that is). Of course, it's a sign of a civilized society that it takes care of its weaker individuals. But our society still has a long way to go. It needs to stop bickering over power and border issues - these tend to go round in circles as that which is being destructed has to be mended. It needs to start focusing on the real needs of its members and those who are healthier and wealthier obviously need to take more responsibility for the whole. "X" stands for many things. X marks a spot - this is where the problem lies (it's invisible to the viewer so must be marked with a sign). X is an unknown denominator (in mathematics x is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value) - often when it comes to physiological problems, the causes and effects are not known or well defined and even diagnoses can be elusive. X signifies a multiplication operation - physical symptoms have a tendency of multiplying over time as one thing leads to another. X has crossed something off or out. X-rays reveal physiological disturbance invisible to the eye. X can replace the signature of someone who is illiterate - this could symbolize the inability to fit in. In some countries (such as Finland where I come from) X is commonly used instead of a tick in a box - I tick all the boxes for someone who is crossed out of society, for instance. There are also the X-files, which are not open to the general public due to their abnormal nature, and X-rated i.e. censored material which is also available only to the chosen few or those who especially choose to partake in this material. During the plagues, X's were drawn on the doors of those afflicted with it. "Shunning someone like the plague comes to mind...". But most of all, X is an abstract sign that points to a concrete phenomenon. (Please not that this explanation is copyrighted and part of an ongoing project).

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

There is an ambivalent emotion in this image, where the volcano stands for male aggression. When "well mannered" this force can be a positive, exciting thing in the form of mature sexuality, when it's not life affirming it becomes destructive. The tension between male and female (yin and yang) is as old as the universe and no one will escape it.

As a child you don't understand why some things are not pleasant, nor do you understand what it means to have an illness. The image of a child is in fact myself as a child.

The idea of the American dream about competing your way to the top is at the centre of this image.

This is an attempt to depict the stress and "waking nightmare" of insomnia. It's a window into the echoing hallways of half-sleep, and there are layers beneath the surface that reveal the repetitive nature of the brainwaves that keep it all ticking.

"Touch Me Not" is a biblical statement even without any religious sentiments from my part. To me, it's a forceful phrase about being apart, for better and for worse. It is about a fear of being approached in a way that will violate the vulnerable inside.

Time will relentlessly move forward whether we like it or not, and sometimes all we can do is just hang in there and manage the best we can... sometimes exposed to the winds, vulnerable and raw like a newborn baby.

Various states of mind from an emotional point of view.

Various states of mind from an emotional point of view.

A series of states of being from an emotional point of view.

A series of states of being from an emotional point of view.

A series of states of mind from an emotional point of view.

A series of states of mind from an emotional point of view

All these corporeal needs and obsessions...

Although often limited as women, and maybe even dismembered in a psychological sense, archetypically we carry great mysteries within and are deeply connected to life and death.

Everyone goes about their daily business in their own way, but are they aware of how interconnected they really are?

This is a story of survival about immigrants in Kansas, USA (the photo of gravestones with European names in the middle is my own), tracing the imaginary life of the woman who was an unmarried teacher and wrote stories, and lived in a now derelict house. The pieces of writing, the excerpts of written text, pieces of wallpaper, and the cheques are all real.

One in a series, "Beauty in the Rough". of abstract photographs symbolizing body image and issues surrounding the aesthetic values in society today. The surfaces are often of the outside of a skip or similar objects related to decay either by association or process linked with time.

The colours of creativity and passion dominate this piece which is about the possibility of triumph over adversity.