Paper Flowers

For three years I visited a psychiatric ward every month and photographed long-term patients; that work became Still, Here. In the series, one woman introduced herself with a paper flower. Next to the flower, rolled from scraps of paper covered in handwriting, she wrote that it resembled her own body and mind, clumsy and lacking.

She was discharged. I got in touch, wanting to record her life after discharge together, and heard that she had been admitted again. When I met her on the ward in October 2026, she had no paper, and was practising Chinese characters on a cardboard box.

On the ward, much is given: meals and medication, the day’s timetable, and now the paper I hand her. Among all these given things, I want to see what she makes for herself.