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Pain, Body, Gender, Sexuality, models of Excellence and Body transformations
Pain, Body, Gender, Sexuality, models of Excellence and Body transformations
VISIT THE VIRTUAL GALLERY
Ignored Regards: Body, Gender and Sexuality
Sguardi ignorati: Corpo, Genere e Sessualità (20 October - 30 November 2024)
In partnership with the art Gallery GLIACROBATI and the ONG Fermata d'Autobus, Turin municipality funded a month of scientific activities lead by Federica Manfredi and Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto. Federica Manfredi and Chiara Borgaro curated an artistic exhibition dedicated to sensitize about women violence with art pieces provided by Guia Besana, Sofia Rampanelli and Lucia Bessone, hosting the exhibition Vulvar Pain. Art. Science. Resistance.
The project involved a rich agenda of activitieis, such as creative workshops, university trainings, round tables, and digital tours of the exhibition. The virtual experience of the visit is available at https://www.vspacegallery.com/virtual-tour/sguardi-ignorati/
During the artistic exhibition, the group COLLETTIVO GLI ACROBATI inaugurated a podcast series about art and resistance, health and wellbeing, interviewing Federica as podcast guest. You can get the Italian record here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLRD-U6DowE
THE EXHIBITION : Vulvar Pain. Art. Science Resistance
(2022-2025)
Artistic and scientific exhibition curated by Federica Manfredi as public engagement project based on the anthropological research The Cloth of Pain, supervised by professor Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto (2023-2024).
The exhibition is composed by a collection of 14 ethnographic handcrafts co-produced with women suffering of vulvar pain who methaphorically transposed pain memories in pieces of cloth. Each handcraft is associated with a QR code reporting the voice of its creator to drive the visitor into the ilness history through the methaphors of colors and textiles. This creative methodology is named art-based ethnography.
Along with the cloths, the exhibition includes two artistic installations: Showing Gold, Silence the Thorns (2022), by Lucia Bessone; Sitting with Vulvodynia (2022) by Sofia Rampanelli. The artists were involved during the research process and the collaborations with the ethnographer became ethnography-based arts, meanings artistic products based on ethnographic data.
The exhibition was inaugurated at the Campus Luigi Einaudi in February 2024 with the support of Angela Zottola, Alessia Toldo and a group of students as organizing committee. The creation of the exhibition was founded by the department of Cultures, Politic and Society of the University of Torino as public engagement project 2024 (PI: R. Ferrero Camoletto). After the inauguration, the exhibition started a traveling experience of dissemination.
The calendar of the traveling exhibition:
February - March 2024: Campus Luigi Einaudi, University of Torino
April 2024: Palazzo Nuovo , University of Torino
May-June 2024: Politecnico University of Torino
July-September 2024: Associazione Cultura e Sviluppo - Alessandria
October 2024: Ospedale Cardinal Massai - Asti
November 2024: Galleria Gliacrobati, via Ornato 4, Torino
December 2024-January 2025 Ospedale Regina Montis Regalis - Mondovì (CN)
February 2025-April 2025 Ospedale San Luigi - Orbassano
May 2025-September 2025 Ospedale Sant'Anna - Torino
More info at: https://dolorevulvareasr.blogspot.com/p/progetto.html
V-Days Vulvar Dialogues About Youth and Sexuality (2024-2025)
V-Days Vulvar Dialogues About Youth and Sexuality (2024-2025)
PI: Valentina Proserpio
Project Manager: Federica Manfredi
Vulvar and/or pelvic pain is present in various conditions, such as vulvodynia and endometriosis, which are often invisible and neglected; they receive occasional media coverage but not systematic information campaigns. These conditions are more common than one might think – for instance, 1 in 7 women suffers from vulvodynia, while endometriosis affects 1 in 10 individuals with a uterus who are of reproductive age.
Our research (PRIN2022; The Fabric of Pain; Vulvar Pain) shows that vulvar and pelvic pain is an invisible pain, primarily because patients do not identify as such, often considering their suffering normal, especially during sexual intercourse. The lack of scientific knowledge about these conditions creates gaps in the training of medical personnel and delays in diagnosis. People suffering from vulvar/pelvic pain often see multiple specialists (a phenomenon known as therapeutic nomadism), facing tortuous, costly, and frustrating journeys from one clinic to another in search of effective diagnoses and treatments, sometimes even resorting to self-medication in an attempt to find relief. They also risk their pain becoming chronic.
Patient associations engage in activism to gain institutional recognition for neglected conditions, and the (few) healthcare professionals who specialize in these pathologies promote therapeutic protocols. However, there is a lack of intergenerational dialogue and communication campaigns that allow those affected to participate actively in discussions about contemporary sexuality culture and its impact on vulvar/pelvic pain experiences. The goal is to value embodied knowledge – the knowledge derived from personal and therefore unique experiences and stories of those who endure this pain – and to promote awareness about vulvar and pelvic health.
The project aims to involve students from the University of Turin in two main actions: a training program to enable them to educate others on the project’s topics and the co-design, together with the research group, of workshops aimed at high school students, which will be extended and adapted for the adult population. These activities will also involve activist and patient associations, as well as medical associations dedicated to studying and treating these conditions. These actions will expand the audiences involved and the project’s impact through communication strategies and tools tailored to different interlocutors.
Dare voce al Dolore. Esplorare pratiche di cura accessibili e inclusive per le persone che soffrono di dolore pelvico e vulvare. [Voicing Pain. Exploring care practices, inclusivity and accessibility for people suffering of vulvar-pelvic pain] (2024-2025)
https://www.darevocealdolore.unito.it
PI: Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto – University of Torino
Post doctoral research fellow: Federica Manfredi
Project co-founded by Foundation Cassa di Risparmio di Torino - CRT and University of Torino
Period: June 2024 - December 2025
The action-research project Giving Voice to Pain is a socio-anthropological initiative focused on the experiences of vulvar and pelvic pain. Developed with a dialogic and multidisciplinary approach, its main objective is to explore the experiences of illness and the structural and sociocultural factors that contribute to inequalities in access to care and in the ability to negotiate treatment plans.
By analyzing challenges and best practices across the Piedmont region and collecting data from multiple provinces, the second general objective is to identify strengths that can be replicated throughout the territory. This will position the Piedmont case as a privileged comparative benchmark for future analyses with other Italian regions and on an international level. In the national context, the Piedmont Region stands out as a case study demonstrating excellence both in terms of the healthcare services offered (from an initial exploration of patient association social networks, certain hospital departments and clinics are recognized and recommended, attracting therapeutic nomadism from other areas of the country) and in terms of patient activism and their social networks (including some Turin-based groups that contributed to the formation of a national committee on vulvodynia and pudendal neuropathy, https://www.vulvodinianeuropatiapudendo.it/).
More specifically, the two general objectives are broken down into a series of sub-objectives, which will be pursued through participatory research involving patients and their associations, healthcare professionals, and members of family and social networks.
Dialoghi tra Vulve e Esperti sanitari - DIVE [ Dialogues between Vulvas and Health experts] (2024-2025)
Dialoghi tra Vulve e Esperti sanitari - DIVE [ Dialogues between Vulvas and Health experts] (2024-2025)
PI: Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto - University of Torino
PI: Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto - University of Torino
Artistic and scientific curator: Federica Manfredi
Period: September 2024-June 2025
Project of Public Engagement with educational workshops for health care professionals (ECM recognition in Piedmont hospitals) and involving the circulation of the art exhibition "The Vulvar Pain" in hospitals across the Piedmont region.
Project of Public Engagement with educational workshops for health care professionals (ECM recognition in Piedmont hospitals) and involving the circulation of the art exhibition "The Vulvar Pain" in hospitals across the Piedmont region.
The project is funded by the 2024 public engagement grant from the Department of Cultures, Politics, and Society at the University of Turin.
The project is funded by the 2024 public engagement grant from the Department of Cultures, Politics, and Society at the University of Turin.
Excel The Pursuit of Excellence (2017-2022)
Excel The Pursuit of Excellence (2017-2022)
PI: Chiara Pussetti - University of Lisbon
PI: Chiara Pussetti - University of Lisbon
http://excelproject.squarespace.com
The technological capacity to transform biology, relying on advances in genetic engineering, pharmacology, bioengineering, cybernetics, and nanotechnology, has spurred a variety of devices to manipulate bodily forms and human functions that are commonly defined "enhancement technologies". Under this definition are included cosmetic biotechnologies as different as aesthetic plastic surgery, skin bleaching treatments, smart and life-style drugs, hormonal therapies and biohacking implants - that aim to ameliorate human characteristics, including physical appearance and cognitive performance, regardless the diagnosis of a formal pathology.
Prompted by economic analyses on the increase in cosmetic consumption of biotechnologies in Portugal during the global financial crisis, and spurred by empirical and bioethical studies on the risks, the limits and foresights of body manipulation, this research project aims to critically analyse enhancement technologies within their shifting economic and socio-historical contexts. The project EXCEL tackles enhancement technologies as bio-investment practices to promote personal competitiveness according to a logic of excellence, reading bodily and cognitive alterations as processes of self-making. Focusing on the Greater Lisbon area and noting the national and transnational circuits that affect this context, we aim to add to existing statistical and bioethical analyses qualitative, ethnographic data to unfold the complexity of these practices, by examining the relationship between subjectivity, body management and citizenship. Drawing from Aihwa Ong, we will approach citizenship as a sociocultural process of subjectification - of self-making and being-made.
The aim is to bridge the micro-dynamics of specific forms of bio-investment - exploring practices of and aspirations for biomedical self-making - with the genesis of new markets and transnational circuits of cosmetic medical tourism.
Doctoral research project: Learning to Fly. A multi-sited an trans-national ethnography of body suspenisons in Europe (2017-2022)
Doctoral research project: Learning to Fly. A multi-sited an trans-national ethnography of body suspenisons in Europe (2017-2022)
University of Lisbon. Supervisors: Chiara Pussetti, Cristiana Bastos.
University of Lisbon. Supervisors: Chiara Pussetti, Cristiana Bastos.
Scholarship Founded by FCT (4 years) and University of Lisbon (1 year)
Scholarship Founded by FCT (4 years) and University of Lisbon (1 year)
The qualitative project aims to study body suspension, understanding meanings and purposes of the practice in a transnational multi-sited approach with artistic-complementary self narration strategies. Suspensions, realized piercing the skin with hooks and hanging up protagonists, challenge body and mind limits through pain and embodied emotions, operating changes portrayed as responsible for self-moulding processes.
The doctoral project has been defended in October 19th, 2022 at the University of Lisbon. Scientific committee: Ana Nunes de Almeida (President), David Le Breton, USIAS - Université de Strasbourg, Paulo Jorge Pinto Raposo, ISCTE - Universidade de Lisboa, Maria Susana Pinto Figueiredo de Noronha, CES - Universidade de Coimbra, Victor Sérgio Coelho Ferreira, ICS -Universidade de Lisboa, Chiara Gemma Pussetti, ICS - Universidade de Lisboa.
Based on the doctoral work, in 2024 Bergahahn Books published the monograph "Beyond Pain. the Anthropology of Body Suspensions" in the Cultural Studies series.
Gender and Generation inequalities in rural Switzerland (2010-2012)
Gender and Generation inequalities in rural Switzerland (2010-2012)
Anthropology fieldwork in Lausanne (Swiss) in the governmental project PRN60. The project focused on gender equality in rural areas. As member of the social research team, I learned about key practical aspects of the work of anthropologists. I was responsible for the Italian region and I had the opportunity to participate in several international conferences, enabling the participants to present and share the results of our research. Ever since the beginning of my stay in Lausanne, I was involved in the team work: this is one of the most relevant aspects of this constructive experience, which enabled me to learn how to plan and develop my research properly and what information I should focus on at every stage of the research process. Most importantly; I learned how to use Nvivo system, an informatic software intend for the analysis of qualitative data in a quantitative perspective.
The good Death (2009-2011)
Project of qualitative research exploring tanato-practices and tanato-politics in contemporary Italy among foreigner communitites in Roma and Torino. the research project was finalized to graduate at the University of Sacro Cuore, Roma, post-graduation course in Culture, Migration and Psychopathologies.
During the summer 2010 I realized an internship at the Ariodante Fabretti Foundation in Turin.
I had the opportunity to cooperate with permanent staff in fundraising team.
Ranchi invisible poeple (2007-2008)
Session of independent fieldwork in Ranchi (Jharkhand, India). Three-month stay in order to study Adivasi's culture and develop a project on visual anthropology. I was focused on the migration of Adivasi from the jungle to Ranchi city and their identity changes. The ultimate outcome of this experience was an ethnographic documentary about Adivasi’s condition, The invisibles of Ranchi.
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