Onchocerciasis is marked by Marcus use of a fundus camera. A camera which is normally used in eye clinics and hospitals to examine diseases such as glaucoma and diabetes and which makes it possible to photograph the retina of the eye.
Travelling by small aircrafts, pick up trucks, motorbikes and canoes he managed to bring a 30 kg fundus camera, to the remote Community of Gangumi in Taraba State, Nigeria.
In Gangumi he used the unintentional aesthetics of the fundus cameras for a disease that the technique is normally not intended for. He enables us to see beyond our eyesight and allows us to look through the pupils of the people suffering from onchocerciasis. The result is a terrible disease rendered into beautifully planet-like pictures of different colours.
Onchocerciasis is spread by the black fly, which lives near the fast flowing rivers in the rural parts of Africa. When bitten by the fly, a worm larvae enters the body where it produces thousands of microfilarie that invade the body and travel toward the eyes causing severe damage on the retina. It is particularly prevalent in Africa, where more than 99 percent of all cases occur. 500.000 people are already blind, 37 million are infected and another 120 million are at risk. Still this devastating disease is almost unknown to the western world.