Stomach Ache: Curating with Guts in the Medical Humanities
Stomach Ache is led by two practicing curators and emerging leaders in the fields of visual arts, creative-public health and the medical humanities: Dr Vanessa Bartlett and Dr Rachel Marsden. The project aims to explore and test new perspectives on curating and lived experience, using the gut and digestion as a conceptual framework.
The ‘New Networks in Critical Medical Humanities Funding Scheme’, part of the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research (NNMHR), supported three international, interdisciplinary workshops. These were designed to share insights from the project and foster long-term partnerships for future large-scale grant applications. Attendees included representatives from Crohn’s and Colitis Australia, The Microbiome Research Centre, clinical researchers and gastroenterologists from Western Sydney University and Monash University, and a recent recipient of a major Australian Research Council grant on the microbiome, demonstrating the strength of the project’s interdisciplinary networks.
During the grant period, Stomach Ache engaged approximately 2,200 participants digitally and in person, including 40 event attendees and 11 newly initiated artistic collaborations. The project website also received over 2,000 unique visits, demonstrating public interest and reach. A key outcome of this engagement has been the commissioning of Bartlett to curate Gut Waters at Bankstown Arts Centre in Western Sydney (26 July – 6 September 2025). This exhibition explores the role of the human gut in reimagining health and our relationship in the world, featuring work by four Australian and two international artists, including new commissions by Eugenia Lim and Helen Pynor. Gut Waters exemplifies the project’s unique contribution to advancing new dialogues around lived experience through curatorial practice, and represents the realisation of research outcomes via artistic methods and practice.
For Bartlett and Marsden, who identify as lived experience researchers, Stomach Ache has been transformative, while deepening understandings of how personal health narratives can shape artistic, curatorial and research practices. The project has challenged traditional research frameworks by positioning lived experience as the central mode of enquiry, reshaping how the lead researchers approach interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge production in the medical humanities.
To learn more about Stomach Ache and join the mailing list: https://stomachacheproject.com/keep-in-touch/
Discover more about Gut Waters (26 July – 6 September 2025): https://www.bankstownartscentre.com.au and https://www.instagram.com/p/DL4K3S5TpG5/