An Optician's Journal, 2021.

LUCA Brussels, BE.
Installation with video, publication, plaster, carton, chairs, tripods, and lenses.

Framed through the fictional diary of a woman optician, An Optician´s Journal investigates how vision is shaped—bodily, visually, and technologically—within and beyond the clinic. At once a caregiver, a technician, and a quiet observer of urban life, the optician becomes a stand-in for the artist. Sitting at her desk, she examines patients’ eyes while gazing through the large vitrine at the street outside. Her reflections drift between clinical routine, inner monologue, and cityscape, turning looking into a tactile, unstable, and affective practice. 

Plaster forms—cast-like, crude, imprecise—evoke seated patients or fragmented bodies, shaped not by observation but by sensation. They recall hybrid figures, where inside and outside collapse onto one surface. Alongside these, a single-channel video interweaves scenes from eye exams with exterior views of Brussels, echoing the camera’s role as both a diagnostic tool and a silent witness. Here, the artist lingers on the mechanics and politics of vision.

The optician operates as an “agent of vision”—a figure who enables clarity while remaining peripheral to it. An Optician’s Journal reveals vision as more than a sensory function: it is an intimate and unstable relationship between observer and observed, shaped by gender, power, and the tools we use to see. Rooted in feminist critique and phenomenological reflection, the project resists the promise of transparency, choosing instead to dwell in the gaps between perception and meaning, diagnosis and touch.