About Atopical Lives

When people open their heart and homes to show what really means to live with a chronic skin disease like atopic eczema, you can get back a reality punch. 

Atopic eczema is much more than a skin disease, it affects the whole body of the patients, their life and their mental health.

The #AtopicalLives exhibition is a project started in 2018 by the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients’ Associations (EFA) with the support of its members associations across Europe. The project features real people of all age groups living with atopic eczema , portraying for the first time the similarities and differences among patients in Europe.

This online exhibition is an invitation to discover and understand the unknown, intimate aspects of living with atopic eczema.

If you or someone close to you needs support with the atopic eczema, consider contacting national patient groups: you are not alone.

If you have been impacted by these real-life stories, do use them and share them. The patients in the pictures want them to make a difference.

Acknowledgements

EFA thanks wholeheartedly the 19 patients and their carers, who chose to contribute to the atopic eczema community in 2018 and 2022 by welcoming us to their lives in eight different countries (Czech Republic, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkiye).

Thanks to Lurdes R. Basolí, for her sensitivity and her talented eye to capture the beauty of life.

EFA thanks its sustainable funding partners whose unrestricted educational grants have made possible the Atopical Lives project as follows:
- Pfizer and Sanofi/Regeneron for the 2018 pictures, video and exhibition
- AbbVie and Sanofi/Regeneron for the 2022 pictures and 2023 videos