This is a photo Ray Lifchez took while working as an architect on a project on Ward’s Island, which has a dark past confining people with disabilities to live their years out in isolation. Disabilities were understood through a medical framework at this moment with an emphasis on institutionalization, treatment plans, normalization of bodily difference. People with severe disabilities could expect to spend their adult lives in institutions or at home cared for my a family member or nurse. The independent living movement fought against these representations and understandings.
The fixtures here evoke a sense of sterility and you can imagine that spending life in a hospital might force someone to identify with the role of a terminal patient.