PAIN PLAY,  2022

How do we visualize invisible pain? How do we navigate the queerness and sickness of own bodies?

PAIN PLAY is an attempt to answer and interrogate these questions in a personal context through the medium of stuffed animals. Made up of 6 beanie babies modified to represent different aspects of my own personal illness (Pervasive Exhaustion, Borderline Personality Disorder, Brain Fog, Gut Pain, Limb Numbness, and Agoraphobia), this project is both a therapeutic exploration of the specific manifestations of my own pain and a way to translate the realities of these experiences to an unaware audience. So often pain that is not visible is considered to be less-than, and through these visualizations I wish to counter that notion and assert the vicious realities of chronic illness.