“Traumatic events are lodged in the body — they change the way we move through the world, what we feel physically and emotionally, even if our memories remain blurry or incomplete,” says Amani Willett. In the 1970s, the American photographer — then a child living in Tanzania — underwent two heavy medical interventions to untangle knots that had formed in his intestines. Operations that carried considerable risks at the time. “I nearly died both times. Even if I don’t remember the details precisely — the fog of childhood and trauma — I know it left a deep mark,” he confides. A fear, that of having come close to death at such a young age, remains anchored and continues to affect his body.
And so, in order to release it, the photographer began ketamine treatments that allow him to explore the inner scars caused by his hospital stays. Sessions that produce extremely realistic visions. “They were like lucid dreams that helped me access parts of my memory that were previously impenetrable,” he explains. After each session, Amani Willett writes down the echoes of the sensations in journals, from which he later decides to use excerpts to create his own digital archive with the help of AI. A way to reflect the confusion of a state while weaving essential bridges between memory, body, and imagination — in order to recover the essence of the fragility that haunts him.
At the edge of death
And it is precisely by confronting it that the artist imagines Invisible Sun. Like a sensory response to this thing we struggle to define, this latent precarity, the book explores “a space beyond written language.” Combining landscapes, portraits, and digital creations, Amani Willett seeks to multiply registers, to summon an immersive experience made of several layers in order to “tell a felt and non-literal story.”
Dark and delicate, the images bring together two notions: “the beauty of fragility and the wonder of mystery.” “I was at the edge of death so young that I always knew life was frail — and yet it holds so much splendor. For me, those two realms are inseparable,” he comments.
A nuanced vision that he manages to better understand and accept as he gives it form, and one he now hopes to share: “There is so much prejudice around trauma — especially when it is psychological. People internalize it, let it rot. I wanted, instead, to fight against this silence. By sharing my story, I hope to create a place where others can recognize theirs.”
Invisible Sun, by Amani Willett, is published by Dust Collective, and available for pre-order at $60.
