Endometriosis

In this new installation, Abril examines chronic pain as both a physiological and political condition. Bringing together seven people living with disabling endometriosis, the work asks how a condition defined by its resistance to visibility might be represented without reducing it to spectacle or illustration. Fragmented and photographed in moments of temporary relief, the bodies resist the coherent, legible subject expected by clinical imaging. Instead, they register endurance, dissociation, and the physical adaptations through which pain becomes inhabitable. Varnished with the artist’s tears, the photographs invoke the historical violence embedded in obstetric practices while pointing to the ongoing institutional neglect surrounding the disease.

A direct continuation of On Mass Hysteria, the third chapter of A History of Misogyny, the installation extends Abril’s long-term investigation into the relationship between gender, institutional power, and the production of knowledge. Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting an estimated 190 million people worldwide. Despite its prevalence, it remains profoundly under-researched and has no cure.