What does it mean to become a patient? What does it mean to undergo standardized procedures that have a history of human experimentation? is there space to be more than a body within medical practice? I have been exploring the notion of “sickness and cure” and how it is used as a tool for conditioning in school, religious and medical institutions, and within family structures. The medical gaze is always perceptive of deviancy and it turns individuals into spectacle and knowledge. The process of looking at a body and interpreting what is seen puts medical practitioners in a position of power for being able to alleviate pain and “inadequacy”. The project Do no Harm is a visual essay that explores medicine as an ideological apparatus. The way that medicine is learned, practiced, and how new knowledge is acquired has been essential to the development of society and a very powerful political tool. The title of the project comes from the Hippocratic oath that medical practitioners take. This project aims to question and explore different components of medicine such as the vulnerability of the body, power dynamics, intimacy, affect, instruments and history. Soft Bodies is the first part of the essay Do No Harm. It is a series of sculptures that represent the insides of the body contained in a soft bag. The material, in contrast with the bones and organs represented, invite the observer to touch and reflect on the medical practices of opening bodies to heal or to explore, acknowledging the intimacy that exists in these acts. These sculptures are intended to be used as emotional anatomical models. Wool is a very peculiar and historically important material. It outlives the sheep in the same manner that medical knowledge outlives the patient.

— Bóca