A series charting the life of a woman suffering from a hypermobility disorder by lens-based artist Christian Badach. Badach is from New Jersey and works throughout the rural northeast. Much of his work focuses on that landscape and its capacity to act as a catalyst for paradoxical emotions that affect one’s psychology, behaviour, and movement. In “West of the River”, Badach follows a woman named Cedar through a collaborative process that explores their shared landscape of Western Massachusetts and the ways in which seasonal cycles grant permissions and restrictions of movement and emotion. The camera functions as timekeeper for a life suspended in the limbo between daily pain and unflinching vigour, as well as for a contemporary landscape under threat. Merging land and domesticity, Badach’s series grapples with themes of nontraditional caretaking, mortality, and love.

Christian Badach participated in our 2026 Book Award open call and made our shortlist.