what stories does your body tell?
In the Critical Anatomies Lab, we ask about the role of body images in mediating medical and healing practices. We depart from the fact that anatomical images are never neutral: they describe bodies, but also reflect worldviews, social dynamics, and politics. In other words, body images hold power, and are often deployed as scientific tools used to perform expertise.
We explore the potential of body images to depict bodies as dynamic, vulnerable, and deeply interconnected with other bodies, environments, and cultural contexts. We believe in the power of communities to devise their own body representations, where boundaries become porous and collective body maps tell stories of resistance and belonging.
The projects below explore the relationship between embodiment and aesthetic practices through various creative modalities. One of our central approaches is participatory body mapping, carried out in collaboration with community organizations.
We are also invested in deploying graphic design in support of body mapping and community healing processes. Learn more about this here.
Our projects strengthen care professions, offer methodological insights to community organizations, and generate tools that can be adapted across multiple settings.
Ultimately, we contribute to design practices focused on health. While preoccupied with designing services and technologies, the question of the body is largely overlooked. Whose bodies are healing, and how do people perceive their own embodied realities? The projects in the lab offer resources, experiences, and graphic materials that expand possibilities for research and action in all forms of design ❤︎.