One Hundred and Forty-Three Centimetres

The photo series „One Hundred and Forty-Three Centimetres“ raises questions about our relationship with the stigma of „impair-ment“ and the technical possibilities to determine the value of a life before birth. The series addresses social issues everybody finds difficult to answer: how do we deal with strangeness and unfamiliarity within the frame of what society calls “normal”.  DOWN’S SYNDROME: a topic that our society discusses and explores again and again. Because of the possibilities of new technology – and high financial profit it makes for the medical market – babies can now be diagnosed with Down syndrome before they are born – and are subsequently sorted out. This has become even easier since 2012, when the PraenaTest – a simple testing of the pregnant mothers’s blood – made it possible to determine whether a foetus has Trisomy 21. Quite often this leads to an abortion – even before the baby is born, it is denied the right to life.