“An English couple, probably in their 60s, told me a story they thought they had forgotten. They were in their 20s when they lost their firstborn baby. There was a complication during the delivery and the doctor did the best for both mother and child, but the child did not survive . They didn’t tell anybody about this story and I was the first person they told.
The husband told me the memory of himself pacing the aisle of the hospital, sweat dripping off his chin came back to him while he was looking at my photograph of the empty baby-cot. He was shifting uncomfortably and wanted to walk away from the photograph until he felt his wife gripping his hand a little too tight.
He told me that it was his wife’s decision to share this old memory of theirs with me. I was speechless and moved upon hearing their story”.
This introduction is from the Mr. Chong’s statement and what he doesn’t say here, is explicit in his book. This work came from a personal experience that involved the photographer and his beloved grandmother to whom the book is dedicated . No modern and technological medical centre can become totally welcoming. Of course some hospitals are much better than others, and these are similar to five stars hotels, but what Mr. Chong’s images focus on is “a study of the sign of death that come from the viewers’ past experiences of illnesses or from the knowledge acquired from the mass media, movies, etc. Every individual image suggest death though they are images of equipments that are supposed to save people life
Institutionalised Care
Photography by Eiffel Chong
Essay by Pang Khee Teik
Kuala Lumpur/Singapore, 2013
52 pages
ISBN 978-967-12099-0-5
http://www.eiffelchong.com
Eliseo Barbàra
http://www.mostartists.com
