ACCU-CHEK

Accu-Chek is a hospital gown with glucose test strips as a textile art installation. The hospital paper gown is probably the most democratic garment in the world. Kings and beggars, models and footballers have all worn it. It opens at the back, looks terrible on everyone, and has a single season: one use only. If Givenchy had designed it, it would be in every magazine.

Accu-Chek is a disposable hospital gown with blood glucose test strips adhered to it. The gesture is simple and direct: two single-use objects, together, on the body.

Accu-Chek hospital gown, glucose strips and textile art installation

Diabetes affects more than five hundred million people worldwide. Type 1, type 2, gestational. Different causes, same system of control: prick, measure, record. The body reduced to a number. Blood glucose as the boundary between normal and pathological. Accu-Chek strips record that number every day for millions of patients. Each strip is a measurement. Each measurement is surveillance. The body measured, quantified, permanently monitored.

The pharmaceutical industry invests in insulin, inhibitors, and new glucose monitoring devices. But the causes of diabetes are well documented: excessive sugar consumption, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress. Modifiable factors. Factors that generate no profit if they disappear. The chronic patient is a permanent customer. The sick body sustains a global market.

Accu-Chek is a textile art piece that forms part of the Hospital Series by Malimbus, a collection of pieces on intervened disposable hospital clothing that explore the relationship between the body, health, and the institutions that manage them. A series born during the pandemic that uses materials from the hospital environment as artistic language.

ACCU-CHEK is a hospital gown glucose test strips textile art installation. Hospital Series, Malimbus Studio