RESPIRE PhD student participating in online chronic illness exhibition

RESPIRE PhD student, Hani Salim, is participating in an online exhibition called ‘Capturing Chronic Illness’ which explores how photography can be used to visualise and re-imagine bodies and chronic illness.

Photovoice project

Hani submitted four photographs to the exhibition from a project called Photovoice. Through photographs, this project is helping her understand what it’s like to live with asthma and low health literacy in Malaysia. The project involved people with asthma in Malaysia taking photographs to document and reflect on the challenges of living with the disease.

Each photograph, along with its caption, captures the socio-cultural stories behind living with asthma in Malaysia and amplifies the participants’ voices on issues that matter to them.

Hani, based at Universiti Putra Malaysia, is aiming to improve asthma self-management in adults in Malaysia with limited health literacy. She is developing and piloting an Information and communications technology-based (ICT) intervention which will help empower asthma self-management skills among adults.

Pictures speak a thousand words. The patients captured these moments in time themselves, thus reflecting matters that are both personal and significant to them in life. During the interviews, they spoke about the inescapable feeling of loneliness in dealing with the challenges of being a person with asthma.

By participating in this exhibition, my hope is that I can help my participants to share their experiences and assure others that they are not alone in the journey.

Hani Salim

Capturing Chronic Illness exhibition

The Capturing Chronic Illness exhibition is part of the Being Human Festival organised by the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at the University of Edinburgh as part of their Visualising Bodies series.

The exhibition features invited and submitted images which explore the many ways that photography can capture chronic illness and help viewers to reimagine bodies and health.

As part of the event, medical humanities scholars, Dr Donna McCormack (University of Surrey) and Dr Ingrid Young (University of Edinburgh) will host an interactive discussion on Friday 20^th November 5pm (UK time). The discussion will be held online and will explore a number of issues raised by the exhibition.

Register for the Capturing Chronic Illness event

View the Capturing Chronic Illness exhibition online

See Hani Salim's student profile