Img. David Fathi ‘The last Road of the Immortal Woman’
East Wing presents
David Fathi
THE LAST ROAD OF THE IMMORTAL WOMAN
Les Rencontres de la Photographie
Winner of the 2016 Photo Folio Review
Emergences – A Showcase of Tomorrows Talents, Arles France
3 July – 24 September / Croisiere
David Fathi will be presenting a new body of work as part of the Emergences section of Rencontres d’Arles ‘The Last Road of the Immortal Woman‘ – On October 4th, 1951, Henrietta Lacks passes away from a very aggressive form of cancer. Then starts her last journey, from the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to the family cemetery in Virginia. Nobody knew at the time that another journey started for her, more precisely for her cells. A small sample of her tumor was taken without her knowledge by Dr. George Gey. He was amazed to observe that these cells behaved in a way never seen before: they kept growing and multiplying, again and again, infinitely. Henrietta could not know, but she had become immortal. This case is one of the most famous, and problematic, stories in modern medicine. The last road of the immortal woman is a liminal space. Between mortality and immortality, scientific and emotional, political and personal, metaphysical and empirical, exploitation and recognition. Its the space separating what a human life is, and can be.
