Dancing with Carcinoma. Małgorzata Lisowska’s Microscope Photography.

The art practice of Małgorzata Lisowska is a story about the love of life, the world, oneself and art. It is also a story about cancer. Her photography is a deeply introspective look into the self, an attempt at seeing our world at its actual as well as micro-scale through human cells. Finally, it is the question of who we are.

Dobromiła Błaszczyk: A year ago, you called me to tell me about the cancer and the treatment that was ahead of you. In the same conversation, you mentioned the plan to photograph your own cancer cells. The subject of a disease, an observation of your body through art, and the gesture itself to draw a connection between these two aspects are all closely bound in your case. Why did you make this decision?

Małgorzata Lisowska: I felt the need to photograph cancer cells long before my diagnosis. At that point, I didn’t realised I would photograph my own cancer. In early 2020, my career veered towards healthcare. I went to the Netherlands to learn about the concept of Value-Based Healthcare, which is about measuring medical outcomes. The organisation Value Based Health Care Center Europe offered me to be their ambassador in Poland. Ever since then, the vast majority of my professional projects have been related to healthcare. As a person with a strong aesthetic sensibility, I paid attention to the visual aspect and communication that have surrounded me since the very beginning. I was surprised that people in this field rarely take into consideration how the environment we create in — for instance medical facilities — or the way we communicate various information about diseases influence the patients. The lack of awareness that this might affect the results of treatment, prophylactics and one’s experience of an illness is unfortunately quite common.

DB: Microscope photography is a very narrow and specific area of artistic activity. You delve into this world that we cannot see, and yet it is constantly all around us. Why did you choose this type of language to formulate your vision? What does microscope photography mean to you?

ML: I discovered microscope photography while I was working on a project alongside diagnosticians. I realised that it allowed me to contribute to the visual shift in healthcare, which was something I wanted to do from the beginning, but I didn’t really know how. I started learning microscope photography and I fell in love with the cosmos that it shows us, somewhere along the way.

For me, microscope photography is an art form. My goal is to move it from a lab to a gallery space. Though rather niche in and of itself, I hope that my work could be accessible to a wide range of audiences. My intention is to use microscope photography to address various subjects — not just diseases, as evident from the early series — and to depict the world that not everyone can see with their own eyes. In my opinion, microscope photography opens up a possibility for palpably presenting different taboo issues, the kind of issues we would have turned our backs on (or overlooked) otherwise.

Furthermore, I started using microscope photography as a tool for working with cancer patients and their loved ones who support them on this journey. Behind every picture of human tissue is a different story. These are thousands of words in a single frame. Especially while working on my latest series related to cancer cells, I feel the need to share my experience and what helped me get through the breast cancer with other people. I believe that the conclusions I arrived at and tested on myself in the course of treatment might help other patients, and so I want to pass that on.

DB: Your work is extremely revealing. It is more than nude photography. You laid yourself bare completely, down to the minuscule cells of your body. Was this your original intention or perhaps a necessary side effect of tackling the subject of cancer?

ML: It was my original intention. I just didn’t realise that I would be showing my cancer cells.

As I was working on one of the oncology projects, I decided that I wanted to focus on this specialty — not only from the perspective of measuring medical outcomes but also filling the gap existing at the visual level. It seems odd to me that everyone knows what COVID-19 looks like but not cancer. Microscope pictures of cancer cells were the missing element in the narrative in oncology. I started exploring opportunities for photographing the cancer cells of patients.

In the meantime, I enrolled in the postgraduate course in psycho-oncology because I wanted to gain knowledge and a better understanding of the perspective of cancer patients to know how to support them. After one semester, I was diagnosed myself.

DB: What was your initial reaction when you saw the pictures of cancer cells for the very first time after you started taking them?

ML: Ever since I was diagnosed, I found it obvious that I had to confront my cancer, but I had not the faintest idea what I would see and how it would affect me. I remember my reaction when I first saw my cancer cells under the microscope. I burst into tears, I was moved by what I saw — “No, it’s impossible that something so beautiful would want to kill me!” Those were fantastical, abstract images created by my own cells through carcinogenesis. The process of oncogenesis manifesting itself as the tumour, filled me with awe from the start. I saw these “dancing and lost” cells. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. The need to share this with the world was there from the outset. I wanted to show others that there was nothing to be scared of, that my cancer was a part of me, not some kind of “alien.” And so, I put aside my fear and focused on medical treatment. I made a decision that I would undergo treatment with the most tenderness and love I could offer myself. Cells and tissue in the shape of a heart completed my narrative.

DB: While conducting such a deep introspection, did you focus more on the aesthetic or meaning behind the gesture of exposing the taboo subject, which some might even find embarrassing?

ML: From the very beginning I cared about dealing with the taboo subject. Since the diagnosis, I experienced some sort of social exclusion whenever I talked about my cancer and upcoming treatment in my close circle of friends. Many people turned their backs on me. A lot has changed in a very short time. The first two months (out of five) of chemotherapy took a particularly heavy toll on me. In the face of social exclusion, I felt useless since a lot of people had already written me off. I couldn’t come to terms with it. After all, I was exactly the same person I was before the diagnosis, and yet everything changed in the blink of an eye. I started my chemotherapy in March 2023. In April, I decided to submit pictures of my cancer cells for the microscope photography competition Nikon Small World. Submitting those pictures was the manifestation of life to me. I wished to be seen and accepted along with the breast cancer that I was experiencing. Although most people were abandoning me, I wished to manifest that I was alive and that I wanted to live. I am glad the whole world heard me. I placed third. After 31 years, Poland is back on the podium of the competition. For me, it was a shakeup of reality. 

DB: In my mind, your artistic journey marks the process of becoming, and what I mean by that is becoming who you are as Małgorzata. Looking at the bigger picture, it seems like a reflection on the human condition; on something that makes us who we are. Also, these unwanted, foreign, and undesirable things — such as the cancer cells that as you mentioned before are often viewed by patients as something they need to fight with — are parts of us… these are our own cells. What is your take on this?

ML: We have known each other for years, and you are aware that I have always been close to art, looking for my place in it. It turns out the place found me, which you also witnessed. For years, I have asked myself this question — how is it possible that we explore the cosmos and yet know so little about ourselves? We look amazed at the NASA pictures, but hardly ever are we amazed by another human being. I would like to shift the audience’s perspective; to show them that the cosmos is at their fingertips, as well as it is inside me. I would like to spark amazement at simple things such as human cells, vitamin C, or a plant. I am inspired by the NASA pictures and seek out cosmic frames under the microscope.

Right now, I show cancer from a different, authentic angle. It turns out that cancer cells have no claws, they are not monsters. Even they can be beautiful. What should I do with this piece of information? which is a part of me? How should I fight against myself? I couldn’t.

I generally believed that I didn’t have to fight, or even that I didn’t want to fight. From my perspective, the fight is stigmatising. It separates us into winners and losers. In my opinion, the war narrative undermines and inhibits recovery. In the course of such a long treatment like mine, it is important to find a source of strength and motivation. Maintaining the war narrative over a couple of months of chemo is difficult. I was extremely weak in the first weeks of chemo, barely able to walk. Yet I knew that only care and tenderness for myself would give me strength. That was my narrative during the entire treatment. Now that it is finished, when I had the surgery and had a one hundred percent response to chemotherapy, I feel mentally stronger than before. Unfortunately, oncology is dominated by the war narrative. No one has proposed any official alternative. I started working on it during treatment and I believe that soon I will be able to share a new approach.

DB: I am wondering, how did you manage to retrieve your cancer cells to work with them.     

ML: Every patient owns their results of medical examinations, including biopsy slides. Everyone has the right to take them from the place where they were diagnosed. All you need to do is go to the facility where you were diagnosed, submit a written request, and collect the slides. Biopsy slides are stored for several years. Few people know about this. Few people take advantage of it.

DB: Who is the target audience of your latest series of photographs?

ML: With microscope photos of my cancer cells, I would like to diminish the level of fear in oncology. I wish to familiarise people with a disease that is essentially democratic — it can happen to everyone. There is also an intention that healthy people would not fear cancer patients and would not turn away from us. It is difficult to go through cancer alone. My current activities related to oncology also derive from the need to tame my fear. Cancer is now considered as a chronic disease. I would like to learn to live with the the fear of recurrence and not let this fear take over my life. But it needs time.

DB: And what does art mean to you? What is it?

ML: For me, art is the manifestation of life. It has always been the most valuable form of support during difficult phases of my life. The act of creation implies movement, and movement is agency. If there is movement, there is also life. Life is movement.