‘Endo-pain Flows’ explores the evolution of chronic pain in endometriosis, a disease where endometrial tissue, similar to the uterine lining, grows outside the uterus. These misplaced tissues behave like the uterine lining but cannot exit the body, often causing severe pain, inflammation, and scarring. Yet within medical systems, endometriosis is frequently misdiagnosed, under-researched and poorly treated — leading to isolation and a deeply individualised experience of pain.

Designer Lucie Briand’s auto-ethnographic research mapped how pain moves, transforms and settles in the body. Each sculptural piece reflects leaking, scarring and regeneration. A regenerative fluid made from medicinal plants circulates through ‘pain folds’, activating a localised, symbolic healing process. 

By transforming personal experiences into shared knowledge, the project seeks to enhance collective understanding, reframe care, and support those affected in reclaiming their bodies and redefining how pain is perceived.

“The medical system underfunds medical research into diseases affecting womxn, resulting in gender disparity and extreme discrimination, confining sick bodies to a state of total disinterest in the eyes of the dominant. The journey of endometriosis is deeply individual, lacking any sense of collectivity. The urgency is then to find ways to organise ourselves in order to avoid the individualisation of each persons suffering from endometriosis, resulting into an extreme isolation and misunderstanding of this chronic disease. How can we find a way to collectively protect ourselves from any kind of violences that results from the medical environment? People with endometriosis suffer from chronic pain primarily due to the lack of recognition and care within the medical system, leading to the isolation and the individualisation of each person’s experience. I argue that the lack of medical research and care for endometriosis causes harmful isolation of those affected by the disease, however, endo collective protection can serve as a strategy to reorganise pain management by integrating holistic practices alongside the existing medical knowledge. I aim to understand the relationship I have with the pain and living conditions of people suffering from endometriosis, and through this text, I hope to inspire you too.”

The patriarchal and heteronormative society in which we live seeks to erase certain identities that do not meet its expectations. To resist this, we must liberate the space around our identities, no longer imitating or reproducing, but transforming and evolving autonomously. 

This performance represents a regenerative act, a process of mutation and transformation through care. As a queer identity, this performance activates feelings and experiences related to social pressures, both individual and collective. How can we protect ourselves collectively? This space invites the audience to gather around the installation and the creation of a tea ceremony, in order to share knowledge gained from lived experience, and thus be seen and heard in a collective space.

Alchemilla takes its name from alchemy. The plant alone has the unique ability to produce the “water from heaven” needed for a number of filters, potions and magic formulas. This celestial water can always be collected in the hollows of foliage, at dawn, when the reed that rushes in mixes with the liquid exuded by the plant. Its invigorating effects on tissues, vessels and blood flow to the endometrium, its anti-inflammatory and hormone-balancing effects can be beneficial at any time in a womXn’s life.
DRINK ME (if you feel like it)