‘Pain, my pain’. An art installation/performance by art-dialog

Abstract

The artists of art-dialog with their professional backgrounds as a family doctor and an art therapist foster the dialogue between art and medical science. From their aesthetically driven improvised art installations / performances arise answers, which are equivalent to the cognitively driven findings of science. The dialogue between them leads to deeper insights.

With their art installation / art performance ‘pain, my pain’ art-dialog addressed the inconceivable, medically not measurable, sides of pain. In the dialogue with visitors the installation appeared as a metaphor for the unutterable part of pain experiences. It gave space to new associations and acted as a catalyst for very personal stories. Finally, the artists compressed the room-filling wiry installation into a ‘pain carpet’, which symbolically retains all thoughts and stories collected during the performance.

The performance was open to visitors non-stop for 48 hours - day and night. In analogy to the pain experience the artists pushed themselves to their physical and psychological limits.

‘Pain, my pain’ took place concurrently with the 3^rd International Systems and Complexity Science for Healthcare Conference in Washington DC, USA. The originally planned virtual dialogue by Zoom© was not possible due to logistic reasons.