‘This is mine, I own it’: how Tracey Emin and Frida Kahlo inspired me to make meaning out of pain

Emin’s unsparing examination of her cancer and Kahlo’s intensely imagined response to traumatic injury moved our writer to take self-portraits while recovering from a serious operation In a photographic self-portrait taken not long after she was diagnosed with squamous cell bladder cancer in 2020, Tracey Emin’s 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 h...

By Kat Lister