In response to pain : moving toward a sustainable practice

Summary: This paper considers the role of an emergent embodied art practice in better understanding, communicating and managing the experiences of chronic illness and chronic pain. Referencing a history of pain scales, diagnostic tools, and pain management strategies that fail to provide adequate relief to those living with chronic conditions, this thesis illustrates the process I have taken to reconstruct my art practice which, built in tandem with intentional lived practices, has enabled me to inhabit my sick body in new ways. At an intersection between queer and chronic illness discourse, following an autotheoretical approach to making and writing, this project is built in deep connection to my own lived experiences. Life with chronic illness is shrouded with uncertainty and demands a practice that embraces the ebbs and flows, trial and errors, and desperate reaches directed by a wavering physical capacity. As such, I rely upon a network of actions that together build the foundation of my research praxis. Connecting my work to artists Janine Antoni, Zoe Leonard, Louise Bourgeois and Jo Spence, my thesis body of work weaves together drawing, photography, video, sculpture, digital collage, note-taking, dancing and walking as different modes of making. The residual artworks produced through these embodied practices work together to communicate my experience as an artist living with chronic illness. Concurrently, these practices offer themselves as maintenance, aiding in managing the symptoms of my physical condition and in the development of a sustainable art practice, re-imagined to work with the needs of my body rather than against it.