Gallstone #1, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

Breast cancer (whole breast removed) #1, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

Many understand disease through the person it inflicts. However, Maija Tammi’s Removals invites viewers to reexamine disease, its visual stereotypes, and the interpretation of diseases today. “They [people] would like to think that the border of our body is fixed and stable. When this border is challenged people often feel uncomfortable.” “Removals” explores the borderlines of art and spectatorship by displaying disease as still life.

The visual idea of sickness as a suffering patient in the hospital bed drew Tammi to explore the visual image of sickness. Her goal was to capture the most common diseases of living patients. Using permission of the hospital staff and patients, her photographs were taken just minutes after surgical procedures. She situated, with the help of the nurses, the disease in a clean kidney bowl in the nearest corner of the room using an OR light to illuminate the removals.

Her series now exists in a book, Leftover/Removals. The publication includes casual conversations from surgeons looking at Tammi’s photographs during their coffee break. Their conversations lay bare many diseases’ texture and form that gallery viewers sometimes misinterpret as food. Below is a partial conversation between three surgeons about Gallstone #2.

“Is this a foreign body? No, what is this? The dark rim is quite even here. Could it be a split stone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Quite black.”

“Very black.”

“If I would see that one in a completely different context, I would think it’s some chocolate truffle or the like.”

“It does look like, it looks like one of the capsules you put in a coffee maker.”

“No it’s not a kidney stone. It is extremely large.”

“But aren’t gallstone sometimes, like, completely black?

“They can be and then they can have different colors on the inside.”

“But how were they able to slice it so clean?”

“Yeah, it must be a stone.”

Goiter, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

Partial removal of a thyroid gland #1, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

Bowel cancer #1, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

Gallstone #2, pigment print 60 x 40 cm. From the series Removals, 2011-2013.

Spinal cord stenosis; pieces of bone and discus, pigment print 60 x 40 cm. From the series Removals, 2011-2013.

Cancer related partial amputation of a hand, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

Brain tumor, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

Diabetes related amputation, pigment print, 60 cm x 40 cm. From the series Removals 2011-2013 by Maija Tammi.

All images © Maija Tammi