Points of View

Vaginismus

Vaginismus is an automatic and unconscious tightening of the vaginal muscles when penetrated which makes any kind of penetration like using a tampon or sex, extremely painful or impossible. I wanted to do a project about education and acceptance of vaginismus as many people feel scared of it and may think of it as their fault. I think that if there is something that can educate people more about it and that the condition can improve, people could feel much better about it earlier. I want to create artwork that is informative and encouraging; so bright and positive, I want it to be a safe space for people to learn and feel better about themselves. For the points of view, I thought that I could talk to people about their experiences with the condition and how they are improving or are learning that it is okay to have. I thought I could also do pieces about causes, treatments and about the feelings that you might feel and how to overcome them. From my work, I want people to feel acknowledged and more comfortable about it and I’m hoping that some people that see my work might relate it to what they are going through where they might not have even heard of the condition before or thought about going to the doctor about it. I want people to not have to put up with pain in order to feel normal and acceptable.

I did some early concepts so I could explore some ideas and visuals.

When attending a Photoshop lecture, I created this photo collage. I wanted it to relate to my project so I used imagery that I have sketched out previously as ideas for my project. I'm not sure that the image is quite polished enough to take further but I think I'll definitely use photoshop to finalise and clean up any illustrations that I do create.

After seeing this pattern design, I wanted to see different ways in which I could incorporate a similar idea into my work using shape and colour.