ARSEP is working with photographer Dorothy Shoes to exhibit her work on MS

ARSEP Foundation and internationally acclaimed artist Dorothy Shoes are working together to organise an event based on Dorothy’s work at the Charcot Library in Paris in early 2016. It will include a photography exhibition, a workshop for people with MS and a conference on ‘Disease and Art’.

“After recovering from the shock of being diagnosed with MS I found myself left with two clear options: flood my pillow with tears, or fight back with my own weapons. I soon realised my luck. As an artist, I possess the most efficient of weapons: the power to transform. To transform an intimidating and fearsome verdict into creative material. It was on the eve of my 33rd birthday that I learned I had MS: an anniversary I shall never forget.
Those around me know and understand very little about the disease, and yet it affects many people in France and elsewhere in the world. I decided that, in my own way, I would demonstrate just what a degenerative disease is, and what it means to have a disorder of the central nervous system that is a threat to the entire body, but also to the cognitive system.

I asked 33 women in my private circle – friends, colleagues, students, etc – if they would help me compose something like a distanced self-portrait by acting out my representations of the disease and the fears it triggers in me. All agreed, and performed with courage and a clear willingness to support me on the project which in turn gave me the strength to complete this series of photographs entitled “ColèresSPlanquées” (“Hidden Angers”, the anagram in French of “multiple sclerosis”.)

The name of that great and unsurpassable strength is: Love. I have never doubted, nor ever will, that love of others – all others – is the most efficient weapon against the horrors, the suffering, the abnormalities and absurdities of our world and against disease.

http://www.dorothy-shoes.com/
[Please be aware that some of the photographs on this website contain nudity]