Embedded Pain
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Women live longer than men on average, yet spend more of that life in poor health. They make up 80% of autoimmune disease diagnoses, are underdiagnosed in ADHD, autism, and cardiovascular disease, and suffer more severe side effects from medication, in large part because women remain underrepresented in clinical research and many drugs are still not properly tested on female bodies. This is the premise of my project, which was developed in collaboration with Trialme, a femtech startup working to bridge the gender health gap by including more women in clinical research.
Starting from that reality, I developed Embedded Pain Theory (EPT): a framework arguing that pain is not only something bodies experience but something systems produce through the decisions of those who design institutions, policies, and standards. Once embedded, pain reproduces itself through training, cultural norms, and economic incentives, without requiring anyone to intend it. Pain is not only personal. It is structural. It is the predictable outcome of systems designed, intentionally or through negligence, without regard for the bodies, lives, and needs of those who will use them. It is reproduced through institutions, transmitted through policy, normalized through culture, and sustained by the economic interests of those who benefit from it persisting.
To move from theory into practice, I developed Embedded Pain Mapping, a methodology for unveiling and mapping the layers through which pain travels within a system: from subject, to surface, carrier, transmission, normalization, and extraction. Each layer makes visible a part of the system that usually stays hidden. Alongside the mapping methodology, I explored how pain can be expressed through a visual language, through design interventions, material exploration, and a Sip & Paint workshop where participants were invited to paint their pain rather than describe it. I also ran a survey gathering women’s experiences of pain and of not being taken seriously and translated the responses into the machine-embroidered textile pieces on display here.
Period pain came up repeatedly during the research as a clear example of pain that gets normalized, something we are expected to manage quietly. Our university offers students many resources, but free period products have not consistently been among them. I designed a series of humorous posters to draw attention to that gap, and worked to install free products in the bathrooms of this building, because period care is basic care and everyone deserves access to it.
So please, feel free to take what you need and If you have questions, want to collaborate, or want to have a chat over coffee, don’t hesitate to get in touch.