What does it mean to live with a condition that cannot always be seen?
How does society respond when pain has no obvious physical marker, when trauma is hidden beneath everyday appearances, or when disability challenges assumptions about what a healthy body should look like?
These are the profound questions at the heart of Unseen Together: A Visual Exploration of Illness and Disability, an evocative new exhibition for Women’s Month presented by the faculty of humanities and the department of visual arts at Nelson Mandela University.
Opening at the Bird Street Gallery on August 24, it brings together the work of Micaela Scholtz, Mieke Janse van Rensburg and Amberleigh du Plessis, in a powerful exploration of the lived realities of endometriosis and disability.
Through research-informed visual practice, the exhibition invites audiences to look beyond appearances and engage with experiences that are often overlooked, misunderstood and unseen.
“Unseen Together provides an important opportunity to celebrate Women’s Month through meaningful conversation, reflection and creative practice.
“Bringing together the work of these three artists who are also lecturers within the department, the exhibition invites visitors to consider how illness is often misunderstood and invisible in society,” artist and lecturer Jonathan van der Walt said.
He is also the curator and gallery manager of the Bird Street Gallery.
Scholtz said: “The series of works, created by myself, Mieke and Amberleigh encompass a diverse range of artistic disciplines, including fashion design, illustration, graphic design and painting.
“They are the result of individual studies, but they also reflect collaborative research outputs that consider the unseen or invisible experiences of disability and the lived reality of endometriosis,” she said.
At a time when conversations around inclusion, accessibility and mental wellbeing are increasingly prominent, Unseen Together examines the “politics of invisibility”.
While endometriosis is one of the most common gynaecological conditions — affecting millions of women worldwide, including an estimated 2.8-million women in SA — its internal symptoms are largely invisible.
It is a chronic condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside of it.
This causes severe pain, heavy bleeding and trouble getting pregnant.
Similarly, many disabilities and disabling conditions are not immediately apparent.
Chronic pain, fatigue and trauma are three examples that dramatically diminish a person’s participation in everyday life, yet there is often little outward evidence that anything is wrong.
Disability is generally understood through visible markers, leaving many people with invisible disabilities facing disbelief, dismissal and social exclusion.
The exhibition’s title, Unseen Together, carries a poignant dual meaning.
It reflects both the invisible nature of many illnesses and disabilities, while also suggesting solidarity among those whose experiences have historically remained unseen.
In bringing these stories together within a shared visual space, the exhibition creates opportunities for empathy, dialogue and deeper understanding.
Rather than presenting illness through a purely medical lens, Unseen Together explores the emotional, psychological and social dimensions of living in a body that does not conform to expectations.
Society often promotes the belief that wellbeing is the reward for pursuing healthy lifestyle choices, but illness and disability disrupt this; reminding us that the body is neither entirely predictable nor fully controllable. Bodies change. They fail. They surprise us.
Unseen Together reveals how the range of disabilities and endometriosis intersect through the lens in which society determines which conditions and experiences are recognised and acknowledged, and which are ignored.
Thoughtful visual storytelling reveals the unseen and that it should never be mistaken for what is absent; it simply exists beyond the limits of conventional perception.
The exhibition challenges visitors to reflect on how convention influences the way in which people with invisible conditions are perceived.
It highlights that visibility is not simply biological, but socially constructed through culture, medicine and media.
In a world increasingly driven by appearances and instant judgments, Unseen Together offers an invitation to pause, to look more carefully to a place where understanding begins with our willingness to acknowledge what has too often remained unseen.
Visitors encounter intimate explorations of memory, identity, grief, stigma, trauma and self-awareness.
The artworks invite reflection on how individuals inhabit their bodies, negotiate their identities and experience the world when living with conditions that others cannot always perceive.
Developed from two complementary research projects, the exhibition represents the intersection of creative practice, academic research and lived experience.
Through methodologies including autoethnography and participatory design, lived experience is recognised not simply as material to be studied, but as a form of authorship in its own right.
Personal experience becomes evidence. Memory becomes knowledge.
The body itself becomes a source of insight that challenges simplistic or stereotypical representations.
Unseen Together illustrates the transformative potential of visual storytelling.
Visitors are invited to engage with the artworks and the questions they raise about recognition, belonging and the ways in which society understands health, normality and visibility.
“Bird Street Gallery is committed to presenting exhibitions that encourage curiosity and discussion, creating opportunities for research and creative practice to connect with the wider Gqeberha community,” Van der Walt said.
“We hope this exhibition will resonate with those whose lives have been shaped by these experiences, and encourage visitors to experience Women’s Month through a lens of compassion and understanding.“
Unseen Together will be open to the public from August 25 to September 11 on weekdays between 9am and 4pm.
Visitors will also have the opportunity to join a public walkabout with the exhibiting artists on Saturday September 7, from 10am to 11am, providing further insight into the creative processes, research and lived experiences that underpin the exhibition.
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