Migraines and Other Physical Pains: Transferring Internal Body-Scapes to the Paper

The paper discusses a series of drawings that visualise migraines and associated physical pain. The project started in 2014 when a hormone dysfunction and the side effects of its treatment made me experience severe migraines and other physical pain. Initially the drawings were a way to relax and reduce the pain intensity. As part of this, I came up with a drawing process that focused on the pain's location, visualised its shape, temperature, color and ultimately transferred it from my body to a piece of paper. Drawing these imaginary internal body-scapes made me more at ease with what was happening inside my body.

In this sense, the paper reframes drawing as a process that goes beyond enjoyment and flow; It explores drawing as a kinaesthetic process that can help us make sense of what's happening around us as well as inside us. Moreover, even though the drawings had been selected to be exhibited as art pieces in the past, this paper is not concerned with their artistic value; it rather explores the capacity of such visualisations to speculate ‘pain-scapes’ (landscapes of pain) and the value of those drawings as part of the medical treatment.