The free exhibition that makes visible the silenced pain of endometriosis

Published on June 03, 2026 | Translated from Spanish

The National Museum of Romanticism hosts the exhibition Silenced Pain, by artist Laia Abril, a free exhibition that addresses how endometriosis has been ignored by medicine for centuries. The disease affects millions of women with chronic pain, and the proposal seeks to break the historical silence surrounding this female health issue, offering a space for reflection and public recognition.

young woman sitting on a museum chair, hands on her abdomen in a gesture of contained pain, facing an artistic installation composed of glass jars with organic fluids and old medical documents, dim gallery light illuminating her face as she watches a projection of ovary and uterus shadows on the wall, cinematic style, technical photorealism, aged paper texture on the panels, atmosphere of silence and reflection, cool blue and gray colors, details of veins and tissues in the projected shadows, dramatic museum lighting

The technical failure of historical medicine with the female body 🩺

From a technological perspective, the exhibition points out how medical research has prioritized male biological systems, leaving out processes such as menstruation or chronic pelvic pain. The absence of precise diagnostic tools and specific treatments for endometriosis reflects a persistent development bias. The artist documents how clinical protocols, by ignoring these symptoms, have created a data vacuum that perpetuates the lack of effective solutions.

When the uterus becomes an unsolved mystery 🔍

If medicine had dedicated half the resources to endometriosis that it has to studying male baldness, today we would know more about the uterus than about the surface of Mars. But no, here we are, with women who have spent years hearing that it's all in their head while real pain roams through their bodies without a map or instruction manual. Good thing art, at least, doesn't need a prescription to point out the obvious.