Schmerzräume

What happens when experiences of pain are downplayed and rendered invisible? 

This event brings together performance, readings, and visual imagery, creating a space for critique of gender medicine and opening up new perspectives on health, pain, and structural inequality.

The artists Alice Muitoevoli Rugai, Anna Frehiwot Maconi, Elena Agebo, Jana Petersen, Susana Vásquez Torres, and Henok Getachew Woldegebreal explore themes such as chronic illness, medical gaslighting, and the transformative power of pain from personal and artistic perspectives.

Short biographies of the artists

Elena Agebo, born in Cologne in 1997, studied Applied Literature and Cultural Studies in Dortmund. She writes poetry and prose, and her work explores identity, alienation, and language. In 2023, she was awarded the Dortmund LesArt Prize for Young Literature. Her texts have appeared in the journal BRACHE, among others.

Alice Muitoevoli Rugai was born and raised in Tuscany, Italy, and has lived in Berlin since 2017, where she studied theater studies and playwriting. They writes theater, poetry, and prose in Italian, German, and English. Their work explores BI+ identity, class relations, and biodiversity. Their plays are represented by S. Fischer Theater & Medien. Their most recent publication is the queer-feminist speech “Class Language, Body Struggles, Part-Time Woman,” which was selected by the Brückner-Kühner Foundation for the collection Ungehaltene Reden Ungehaltener Frauen (Unrestrained Speeches by Unrestrained Women) and published in the volume of the same name.

Anna Frehiwot Maconi is a Berlin-based researcher and author. Her work explores concepts of diasporic identities, the influence of nation-states, and the role of mobility in memory, historical narratives, and urban governance.  

Jana Petersen studied social and cultural anthropology and religious studies at the Free University of Berlin and graduated from the Evangelical School of Journalism in Berlin. Her writings have appeared in outlets such as Deutschlandfunk, the taz, Zeit Online, and Feministische Studien, as well as on the literary journalism platform waahr.de. Petersen has received numerous awards for her work. In 2026, her text “Die wunde Stelle mitten unter euch” was published in “Ich! Ungehaltene Reden ungehaltener Frauen” by S. Fischer Verlag. Petersen has two children and lives in Berlin.

Susana Vásquez Torres, born in Lima in 1990. Bachelor of Fine Arts (ENSABAP), Master of Arts in Context (UdK Berlin). An interdisciplinary feminist artist working in the fields of performance, screen printing, book art, and documentary animation. Her work addresses violence, femicide, menstruation, migration, and grief through intersectional feminism and community art. Through projects such as Omas Projekt, Bleeding Stories, and The Wounded Hours, she creates spaces for empowerment and new narratives that challenge patriarchal and colonial patterns.