Article: The Oxymoron of the Body (Esse, 2026)

The journal Esse provided me with the opportunity to examine representations of endometriosis in contemporary art in its special issue dedicated to disability.

Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting approximately 5–10% of people born with a uterus. Despite its prevalence and often debilitating consequences, it remains widely underdiagnosed and insufficiently recognized.

This article brings together analyses of the work of three artists directly affected by the condition: Georgie Wileman, Anouk Verviers, and Adelaide Damoah. My objective was to highlight the ways in which contemporary artists mobilize pain—intensely experienced within the body yet often difficult to detect through medical imaging—as both an aesthetic and political resource. Their practices challenge dominant frameworks through which suffering is recognized, represented, and legitimized, while drawing attention to forms of embodied experience that frequently escape biomedical visibility.

Through these artistic approaches, the article explores how personal and corporeal experiences of illness can become sites of resistance, knowledge production, and critical reflection on the social and cultural conditions that shape the visibility of pain.

For further information on Esse’s special issue Handi:
https://esse.ca/issue/handi/