Image Description: Eva Charalambides is a caucasian woman that wears large, dark rimmed glasses. She has long straight brown hair with a small section of blonde hair on the right side of her face. She is smiling and wears a fuzzy white and pink sweater. She has nose, lip and ear piercings and is sitting in front of a white and black wall.
Eva Charalambides is a disabled and chronically ill photographer and author who loves to lend her voice and eye to magazines, exhibits and projects that share the reality of disabled lives and to promote disability rights. She shares 24 acres of Ontario forest with her husband, Matt, and the countless wildlife visitors who bless them with their presence.
Despite being constantly prescribed time in nature, the disabled community can struggle to find public beach access that’s fully accessible. The AODA does not mandate retrofitting existing public beaches and instead focuses on routes that lead to new beaches and not necessarily the beach itself. I feel the greatest sense of freedom from the chronic pain and symptoms within my disabled body when I can float on the water. In this image, blue and orange plastic prescription bottles bob on a lake to mimic buoys that sometimes act as barriers used for safe water navigation. I’d love to see all barriers between us and the beautiful lakes of Ontario dissolve like whitecaps on the shoreline, so that every body can access the feeling of floating.
Sink or Swim
This photograph features approximately 15 plastic pill bottles floating in a lake or large body of water. The prescription medication bottles are made of amber yellow and sky blue plastic, each topped with a white cap, and sporting a printed label. The water’s surface is calm and reflective, and in the background, layers of tree lines mark the horizon. The scene is captured from a low angle, close to the water's surface, making the floating bottles prominent in the foreground, while the tree lines are in soft focus in the background. The gentle shimmer of the water and sunspot reflections add texture and depth. The bright orange and blue hues of the pill bottles stand out vividly against the muted blues and greens of the water and distant trees.