La belleza de la muerte y la fealdad de la enfermedad

Abstract

This research-creation project brings together my work and investigations into two diseases, leprosy and tuberculosis, which are genetically similar, but with different manifestations and therefore different management within the social stigma. Likewise, it is an approach to the ways in which they have been visually represented throughout history, the clinical management and policies associated with their control, as well as the stigma and the imaginaries that surround them.

To this end, the presentation of the findings around this topic and the derivative works that I have created during the last 8 years on this path are articulated with the selected images that are inserted throughout the document and that represent a visual journey that invites the reader to understand the ways in which leprosy and tuberculosis have been present throughout the history of humanity. These representations show us how diseases have been treated socially, politically and culturally, taking into account that medical and social practices related to these ailments have had different modes of expression through drawing, painting and other artistic and cultural manifestations throughout history.

Taking into account the concept of stigma in illness as a tool and starting point, in a search motivated by achieving the interweaving of different relationships and perspectives, whether from the patient and their ways of seeing the world, from the family, society, caregivers or treating physicians (medical procedures) and how these feelings are transmitted from different professions and disciplines, we have that stigma serves as a starting point to talk about biopolitics as a form of social control from health, where the unwanted are confined or excluded in order to hide the ugliness and the evils of society and avoid panic towards what cannot be controlled, which is also linked to the concept of public health. In my artistic process, my main interest has been the anatomical aspect from a three-dimensional perspective, but due to personal circumstances, I chose the craft of embroidery as a form of drawing to talk about the body, skin, and illness.