Artists Ailsa Lochhead and Solen Collet have long used their creative practices to process and transmute medical medical trauma as a means of supporting their mental and physical wellbeing. This new collaborative project marks a powerful evolution in their work—merging photography, performance, Super 8 film, music, visual art and creative writing into a deeply personal, interdisciplinary exploration of the emotional and physical aftermath of breast surgery. Rooted in lived experience—Ailsa’s preventative double mastectomy due to the BRCA gene, and Solen’s surgeries for Poland Syndrome, a congenital birth condition—the work will become a raw and resonant inquiry into bodily autonomy, societal expectations, and the cultural narratives projected onto the female form.

The resulting video installation will collage stills and moving image—cut, torn, fragmented, and reassembled—to explore the psychological toll of medical intervention and gendered roles. Themes of censorship, sexualisation, caregiving, and aesthetic judgement, and autonomy intersect in a layers sensory experience. Stark monochrome visuals, movement, and sound evoke rhythms of chaos and calm, resistance and release. The piece will sit intentionally between comfort and disturb, holding space for both beauty and rupture. Alongside the digital exhibition, the artists propose a live Move To Feel session: a participatory, somatic experience inviting viewers into collective reflection and embodied transformation. As ongoing treatment remains part of on artist’s lived reality, this work becomes not only a creative offering but a radical act of reclamation and connection—centering the role of play, open dialogue, embodiment, and artistic expression in supporting mental health and healing. Early compilation and edits in July, whilst estimated final submission will be beginning September.