Don’t Cry, It’s Not That Bad was a body of work that explored how Louise transitioned from coping with her illness within the privacy of her home to requiring full-time care in a nursing facility. I continued this photographic work when my mother was admitted to a long-term care facility in 2015, documenting the profound shifts in her daily life and questioning how her environment may have positioned her as an “object” of her disease rather than an autonomous subject. Throughout this period, and later during my Master’s program, my practice examined the ways her dementia, diagnosis, and institutionalization may have altered her sense of identity and her relationships with family. This inquiry led me to engage with theories such as Michel Foucault’s Medical Gaze, Julia Kristeva’s Abject, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Embodiment, which deepened my understanding of how “sick” and “othered” bodies are perceived and represented within biomedical institutions like nursing homes. Drawing on these perspectives, I aimed to challenge traditional Western representations of illness and encourage dialogue about the lived realities of degenerative disease.