Zine Review: "Dwell" by Lisa Toboz
“Healing is more about accepting the pain and finding a way to peacefully co-exist with it. In the sea of life, pain is a tide that will ebb and weave, continually. We need to learn how to let it wash over us, without drowning in it. Our life doesn't have to end where the pain begins, but rather, it is where we start to mend.”
― Jaeda DeWalt
Lisa Toboz’s series Dwell is a deeply personal narrative that courageously documents her battle with cancer: from her accidental by-chance diagnosis to her chemotherapy treatments, and ultimate journey into remission. What strikes me most about her zine is not the subject matter but the sincere originality that Toboz brings to the table. Without using words (well, a few) she doesn't resort to any clichés or tropes while she transparently captures the feelings, emotions, breakdowns, and breakthroughs of her experience. Dwell is heartbreakingly honest but not voyeuristic in its approach and can only be described as transcendently raw. It asks deep questions about mortality and legacy but also doesn’t masquerade as having all the answers. It’s confusing, ghostly, and graceful in its ability to be both an individualized journey of acceptance that also forces viewers into uncomfortable epiphanies about their own life’s meaning.
Presented over 44 15x21cm (A5) pages, the images within Dwell tackle these convoluted ideas with surreal images created with simple means: a Polaroid Spectra camera with an F101 “motion blur” filter. The contrast of using such low-tech tools to reveal a process riddled with scientific specificity and emotional uncertainty is subtly brilliant. Each photograph captures a feeling, a moment, or phase of her healing that when dissected individually, can stand alone in their creativity. When I asked Lisa why she chose to document her pilgrimage to remission with photography at all she shared with us that: “I am positive and pragmatic. I never thought of the cancer diagnosis as “depressing” so much as it was just something that I had to deal with and keep going. That’s how Dwell came about: we keep on doing what we’re doing, despite having the mother of all chronic conditions. Photography has always been a way for me to escape reality from daily life, so using it as a way to cope with cancer was doing what I always do.”
Not only was photography something she has always done, but it definitely helped her stay strong on the path to recovery. She told us that “My oncologist even said that the more ‘normal’ I kept my day-to-day life, the easier it would be to handle surgery, chemo, all of it. Photography kept stress levels down, and in turn, it helped my sanity, which potentially slowed tumor growth (stress being a big reason tumors can erupt in people with a cancer predisposition). I never thought about photography helping me to take back the power that was taken away because I never felt powerless with cancer. I mostly felt impatient. There is a lot of boredom and waiting with chronic illness: waiting for test results, waiting while sitting in dark rooms chugging nuclear drinks for PET scans (yes, this is a “thing”), waiting six hours for your chemo drip to finally be done, waiting for your hair to grow back. I spent a lot of those moments thinking of images to photograph, and how the day-to-day was just as creatively important as thinking of the future, wondering when it would all be done.”.
As I spend more time with Dwell I came to realize that even a seasoned photographer couldn’t create all of these images alone, especially in Toboz’s condition. Even though her work is considered self-portraiture, every photographer needs a dedicated friend or partner to assist them in both their life and artistic journey. Her partner, also an artist, was thrilled to help Toboz with her series but also served as an inspiration. When I asked her what her favorite image from the zine was she recalled “my favorite image is of the first time I was brave enough to show my buzz cut. I’m wearing a romper (something I never would do before cancer because I was too self-conscious), I’m pale as hell, and I barely have any hair. And I’m super happy. I remember how happy I was that day, just driving around the Chesapeake Bay-area with Jeff, looking at thrift shops, stopping the car just so I could take photos. It was the first normal day we had together without cancer looming over us. And also, I felt so bad-ass with short hair! I’m never growing it long again.”
Ultimately, Dwell succeeds in its ability to touch its readers. Toboz has successfully created a series of mystically authentic photographs that remind us of the questions we need to ask ourselves long before we are confronted with the reality of the answers we seek. I wish I had the best words to wrap up my review of this zine but the artist steals it away with some very simple yet profound words that we could all be reminded of from time to time: “Love is the most important. Which sounds cliché, but it’s true - I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to tell (sometimes told!) people to just chill, seriously, none of that petty shit matters because life is so short. And I felt that love through my husband, my family, my closest friends, and the film community. Sometimes I took photos, underestimating the power that image could have for someone else. That is the highest compliment one can receive as an artist - that it touched someone’s life in some way - and it reminds me how important art is, and how much we need it during turbulent times.”
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Dwell by Lisa Toboz
Published by Polyseme Magazine, October 2020
15x21cm
44 pages
Staple Bound
Single Edition: $10 Euro
French & English
Printed in France
ISSN: 2650-3875
Available for purchase Here!
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lisa Toboz earned her MFA in Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, and is a copy editor for TABLE magazine. Her recent photo books include Dwell (Polyseme, 2020) and The Long Way Home (Static Age UK, 2018). Her instant film photography can be found in various publications including Shots Magazine, The Hand Magazine, and as a featured artist in She Shoots Film: Self Portraits. Her work explores self-portraiture, the forgotten landscapes in and around the American rust-belt region, and creativity as a form of healing. She is inspired by vernacular photography, Victorian spirit photography, and ‘70s cinematography, and has exhibited internationally. She currently lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, artist Jeff Schreckengost.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Michael Behlen is an instant film addict and the founder and publisher of Analog Forever Magazine. For the last 6 years, Behlen has become an obsessive community organizer in the film photography world, including launching the independent publishing projects PRYME Magazine and PRYME Editions, two enterprises dedicated to the art of instant film. Through these endeavors, he has featured and published 200+ artists from around the globe via his print and online publications.
He has self-published two Polaroid photobooks -“Searching for Stillness, Vol. 1” and “I Was a Pioneer,” literally a boxed set of his instant film work. His latest book, Searching for Stillness Vol II was published in 2020 by Static Age. He has been published, been interviewed, and been reviewed in a quantity of magazines and online publications, from F-Stop and Blur Magazine to the Analog Talk Podcast. He loves the magic sensuality of instant film: its saturated, surreal colors; the unpredictability of the medium; it’s addictive qualities as you watch it develop. He spends his time shooting instant film and backpacking in the California wilderness, usually a combination of the two.
Connect with Michael Behlen on his Website and on Instagram!