Frances Bukovsky - Rats
“An acute awareness of the fleetingness of time drove my desire to hold them both a little longer through a photograph.”
Rats
Frances Bukovsky
Grief and joy have been closely knit together in my mind by living with an unpredictable chronic illness. Joy is an intentional ritual with which to weather rough seasons, and grief rides the currents of unexpected rivers that flood my life. I’ve become particularly interested in exploring where one emotion colors the other and the resulting complexity that arises.
I’ve been fortunate to have many rat companions over my life so far, so I’ve grown familiar with how having a companion with a fraction of your lifespan brings that complexity into sharp relief. Whenever I think of Lisbeth and Mai, I always marvel at how absolutely full the years we spent together were. The average lifespan of a domesticated rat is two years, and while they both made it well over the expected benchmark and were two lovely old ladies by the time illness and old age took them, it is never quite enough time. They both saw me through the final weeks of my BFA, three surgeries, and the first year and a half of a pandemic.
Within the first six months of the pandemic, both Lisbeth and Mai developed malignant tumors. Mai had two massive mammary tumors removed that weighed more combined than she did after surgery, and Lisbeth had a small tumor removed near her bladder. Unfortunately, a few weeks after her surgery, Lisbeth passed away from a sudden stroke. Mai lived for another full year before she passed away at three and a half from old age and a recurrence of the tumors.
When making these images, I remember wanting to hold on tight to the moment at hand in a way that felt different to a lot of the other work that I create. Whether photographing both girls clambering over me the morning before surgery or making final images of their bodies after their passing, an acute awareness of the fleetingness of time drove my desire to hold them both a little longer through a photograph.
Frances Bukovsky makes images exploring their experience of chronic illness, disability, and queerness by looking at selfhood, relationships, and medical experiences. They earned a BFA with Honors from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2018, and have since published their debut monograph, Vessel, with Fifth Wheel Press in 2020. Bukovsky is currently based in upstate New York.