Fotograf Zone – Rowena Harris

Long-Covid and the Culture of Disbelief, 2022

Rowena Harris’s Long-Covid and the Culture of Disbelief is a single-channel film that explores the socio-cultural context of Long-Covid and ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). Caught in the legacy of hysteria, throughout history the post-viral condition ME has been treated as psychological rather than biological, which has impeded both care and the development of medical knowledge. The film, made over several years, draws on the artist’s personal experience of these related health conditions. It emerged as a film about ME before the pandemic, and then responsively evolved as Long-Covid emerged and took hold in the world and the artist’s body.

The film uses captions without an audible voice to guide us through an examination of the history of ME. Taking us back to the 1950s when the disease was first studied and named, and then into the 1970s when it was reclassified as a psychological condition and linked to a misogynist idea of ‘hysteria’. The film asks us to consider this culture of disbelief in relation to Long-Covid. Loosely inspired by performative documentary forms, Harris uses a combination of found footage, personal archives, CGI animation, and a soundtrack of rhythmic beeps and clicks, reminiscent of MRI machines and medical equipment to explore sickness as something that slips between the personal, societal and of the film media itself conveyed through texture, rhythm, tone, disrupted time, and a self-reflective narrative. The film narrates back to us: “a film can look like this and still be sick.” as Harris herself notes.

EXHIBITION
FEVER STATE
October 4–12, 2025
Holešovice Market, Hall 13

Rowena Harris

is a queer, disabled artist, researcher, and educator based in St Leonards-on-Sea, UK. Their research-led practice, grounded in crip, queer, and feminist methodologies, unfolds through moving image, workshops, and collective discussion. Harris holds a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London (2025), where their research focused on Crip Autotheory. They have presented solo projects at Phoinix (SK), Las Palmas (PT), The Gallery Apart (IT), and Coleman Projects (UK), and participated in group exhibitions at Goldsmiths CCA, Trafó Gallery, the Barbican, and Fondazione Memmo, among others. Their work expands the possibilities of crip art praxis through collaboration and critical experimentation.

#49 Talk Together

This issue explores language – its forms, possibilities, and limits. We look at how we communicate in the digital space, how the language of artificial intelligence changes our notions of creativity, and how visual images can replace words. You will discover why language is never neutral and how it shapes identity, creates inequalities, and opens paths to liberation. The issue features a reflection by bell hooks, the artistic practice of Eszter Magyar, projects documenting the Roma community in Brno, and visual essays by Claudia Larcher and Tabor Robak. The magazine presents language as a tool of communication, power, and resistance and invites you to reflect on what it truly means to talk to one another today.