Completed over the course of 12 months, Post-Op is a series of body prints that explores my first year following bariatric surgery. I was encouraged by my hepatologist to undergo a sleeve gastrectomy following acute liver failure (a rare medication side effect) in 2018. I chose to record the experience in a series of stomach stamps as a personal commentary on the controversial procedure. Often sold in the United States as a “magical cure to fatness” bariatric surgery (excluding Lap-Band) is a procedure in which a person’s stomach is partially amputated in order to drastically reduce one’s weight. Finding the experience fraught with unexpected challenges and harmful rhetoric, I hope to spark an honest discourse over the surgery’s effectiveness and ethics.
Personal and in-time thoughts on each stamp can be read on my Instagram.
