TY  - INPR
KW  - Photography
KW  -  Pain
KW  -  Visual Arts
KW  -  Metaphor
KW  -  Meaning
KW  -  Magnification
TI  - Inside the Metaphor Series
UR  - https://www.fotonostrum.com/
AV  - public
N1  - Exhibiting three photographs as part of the Foto Biennale (8th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography) in Barcelona, 2025
ID  - discovery10202568
A1  - Padfield, Deborah
Y1  - 2025/04/03/
N2  - The film takes a series of connected microscopes as its blue-print, examining pain from multiple perspectives including interviews with international experts from history, linguistics, pain, medicine, neurobiology and psychology (respectively Prof Joanna Bourke, Prof Elena Semino, Prof Joanna Zakrzewska, Prof Maria Fitzgerald and Dr Amanda Williams) interspersed with patient testimonies (Chandrakant Khoda) and a musical and visual score (Lucie Treacher). The visual imagery derives largely from metaphors co-created with pain patients, in particular, that of a shadow sandwich, where the material of the metaphor, for example mouldy bread from the sandwich, is placed under the microscope and subsequently re-integrated with more recognisable imagery to create a multi-layered and surreal backdrop to the unfolding exploration of pain. Scientific and neuronal images weave their way throughout the more abstract imagery asking ?what is this thing called pain?? The film provides no answers but invites viewers to assemble their own out of the immediacy of patient testimonies and the cutting edge science and research presented.

The film grew out of the pain: speaking the threshold interdisciplinary project at University College London, click here.

A pilot film was tested on audiences at the Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong in 2016, at the Encountering Pain Conference UCL, London and other public events and conferences in London in 2016.
The premiere of the final cut was screened at the Association for Medical Humanities conference in Sofia Bulgaria with a newly commissioned score by Lucie Treacher in 2018. It has since been shown across London including at the Royal Society of Medicine, at conferences and to medical students.
ER  -