Emin\u2019s unsparing examination of her cancer and Kahlo\u2019s intensely imagined response to traumatic injury moved our writer to take self-portraits while recovering from a serious operation<\/p>\n
In a photographic self-portrait taken not long after she was diagnosed with squamous cell bladder cancer in 2020, Tracey Emin\u2019s iPhone shrouds her right breast as our line of vision descends from her catheter to her urostomy bag to her disposable knickers. Her body is fragile here in this hospital mirror, yet her gaze is anything but. It looks us dead in the eye as if to say: I matter, this matters \u2013 <\/em>a sureness that challenges the notion of subjugation in times of ill-health.<\/p>\n Even now, six years after her life-saving surgery, Emin refuses to conform to what may, or may not, make us feel comfortable when it comes to her post-operative body. As well as losing her bladder, Emin also lost her uterus, ovaries, lymph nodes, part of her colon, her urethra and part of her vagina. And yet she has found a striking autonomy in documenting the changes in her body. \u201cThis is mine, I own it,\u201d she affirmed in an interview<\/a> not long after her surgery.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/53975310ee1512e8e2dad8d5833e241c6f230b94\/0_17_2734_2186\/master\/2734.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e72c45f66431f511b8e86f6b1a3da0ce\" "\\"\u2018This")
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