For artist Danica I. J. Knežević, waiting rooms have been a constant presence throughout her life. Her intimate familiarity with these spaces began early - her mother worked as a medical receptionist for the first 17 years of her life, but more significantly, her family's complex medical needs meant countless hours spent in healthcare facilities as both patient and caregiver.
Knežević's family story illustrates the interconnected nature of care. Her mother, a single parent who survived poliomyelitis at 18 months old, now lives with post-polio syndrome, a condition that affects polio survivors decades after their initial recovery. They lived with her grandparents, where her grandfather was blind and had dementia, while her grandmother had Lewy body dementia. This multigenerational household taught Knežević that caregiving flows in all directions - family members simultaneously giving and receiving care.
"They cared for me and I cared for them. I still care for my mum and she still cares for me," Knežević explains. This experience has shaped her understanding of waiting rooms as more than just medical spaces - they've become a metaphor for life itself, inspiring her latest artistic exploration.
The experience of waiting rooms differs dramatically between patients and caregivers. As a caregiver, Knežević describes herself as standing, sitting, and lying next to the care receiver, witnessing someone else's medical journey. She takes on multiple roles: advocate, note-taker, facilitator, taxi driver, and ticket holder. She's the person who announces their arrival to receptionists when the bench is too high for wheelchair users, and who ensures medical staff address her mother directly rather than speaking through her.
"Being a carer is political, and I prepare for the experience in the waiting room," she notes. This preparation is part of a widespread reality in Australia, where approximately three million people - one in every eight - currently provide care to others. However, this number likely underrepresents the true scale, as many caregivers don't identify themselves as such. For those not currently involved in caregiving, the likelihood of future involvement remains high.
The act of waiting itself becomes a complex emotional and temporal experience. Knežević describes it as contemplative yet anxiety-inducing - involving sitting, pacing, and waiting to be called to another room where more waiting often occurs. The boundaries of waiting become blurred: when does it truly begin and end? Does it start with a diagnosis, a concrete plan, or are we perpetually stuck in metaphorical waiting rooms?
"Waiting for a medication to work, waiting to see if symptoms persist, waiting for something to work," she explains. "There is hope in the waiting, even when the waiting seems infinite."
Time operates differently for caregivers and care receivers, moving to accommodate another person's needs and rhythms. This includes waiting for appointments, for numbers to be called, for care receivers' ways of moving, and for caregivers themselves. This creates what Knežević describes as "constant and consistent waiting" - time that is simultaneously yours and not yours.
She characterizes this as a liminal space driven by the act of waiting for another person - "limbo with the definitive action (care), a definitive need without a definitive time."
These experiences have culminated in Knežević's new artwork, "Life's a Waiting Room," which invites gallery visitors to experience the complexities of waiting as a caregiver. The installation combines three photographic works with a participatory waiting room experience.
The photographic component features three x-ray boxes containing images of Knežević waiting with family members. These aren't just clinical waiting room scenes - they capture waiting that extends beyond medical spaces into daily life. The photographs, drawn from her personal family archive, have been inverted to resemble x-rays.
"X-rays reveal the inner body. With this I want to show the inner workings of care and waiting from my personal familial image archive," Knežević explains. Each family member represented had or has complex medical needs, and her early exposure to mortality through caregiving led to her own waiting room experiences.
During particularly difficult waiting periods, Knežević would take photographs to later revisit and reflect on their experiences. This practice helped her "revise and see the invisible aspects in image form," documenting moments from waiting rooms, medical tests, public spaces, and home environments.
The participatory element transforms the gallery into a functional waiting room where visitors take numbered tickets and sit waiting for their number to be called. However, the screen displays numbers that never match visitors' tickets, creating an experience of indefinite waiting that mirrors the reality many caregivers face.
"The audience is invited to sit for as long as they are willing," Knežević says, emphasizing how both waiting and care are typically invisible processes. "Waiting rooms are a space where the experience of waiting for care is visible."
The installation challenges visitors to confront their own relationship with waiting and consider the experiences of the millions of caregivers who navigate these spaces regularly. By making the invisible visible, Knežević's work illuminates an often-overlooked aspect of healthcare and human connection.
"Life is a Waiting Room" is currently on display as part of The Local 2025 exhibition at the McGlade Gallery in Sydney, running until August 17. The work represents part of an ongoing series exploring what inspires artists and their creative processes, offering viewers a chance to experience firsthand the temporal and emotional complexities of caregiving through art.
Through her installation, Knežević transforms a universal yet deeply personal experience into a space for reflection and understanding, inviting audiences to consider their own relationships with care, time, and waiting in an increasingly complex healthcare landscape.
