Migraine Black Box

The Migraine Black Box was created in Karin Kraemer's course "Zines, Artists' Books, and Book Objects," part of Pentiment, the 35th International Summer Academy for Art and Design (Hamburg, 2025). An archive box - large, matte, and locked - becomes the stage for fragmented experiences of chronic migraine.

Not a single book. Rather, it contains a loose arrangement of individual works, booklets, and objects. Flipbooks and large-format images, fragile threads, folded shadows, translucent maps - a polyphony of forms and materials that reflects the chaotic nature of everyday life with migraines.

What remains is the struggle with the invisible. The works make symptoms, stagnation, energy levels, loss of control, or game mechanics visible without smoothing over the chaos. Some contributions take the form of books and booklets, others grow as installations, networking structures, overlaying triggers, opening windows of vision, and creating spaces for decision-making.

The collection defies categorization, deliberately remaining disparate: like life with migraine, which can never be confined to a fixed framework. At the same time, the box offers space for education: an accompanying leaflet provides information about migraines, dispels stigma and prejudice, and refers to further resources.

Thus, an artistic cosmos of fragments emerges: Black. Polyphonic. Open to what is missing and what remains.

Methods and Materials
> Collage, drawing, typography
> Painting and photography
> Experimental bookbinding techniques (thread binding, leporello, flipbook)
> Objects made of paper, cardboard, and tracing paper

The Migraine Black Box was first exhibited on August 24, 2025, as part of the Summer Academy at HAW Hamburg. The presentation took the form of an archival setup: a tabletop with a white cloth, a table lamp, Post-it notes, and printed leaflets. Visitors could take the works from the box, jot down their own thoughts, and leave them behind.

Works List

001 Fragments of an Explosion
Busts with shattered heads, cut apart and reassembled.

Migraine attacks never manifest the same way—they remain unpredictable, changeable, fragmented.

002 Waves of Triggers
Circles and triggers overlap until they reach a threshold. It's not one cause that makes you sick, but the interplay of many.

003 In the Thread of Symptoms
Luminous threads entwine a figure suspended in mid-air. Migraine attacks bind me to more than just headaches - also to nausea, exhaustion, and dizziness.

004 Overstimulated
A leporello of glaring light, wires, sounds, and smells. Stimuli become attacks that render the body uninhabitable.

005 Stillness in Three Acts
A flipbook of an attack: dance - fall - rise again. Migraine abruptly pulls me from my movements and lets the world keep turning while I lie down.

006 Sketches of a Pain Brain
A messy notebook filled with collages, experiments, and thoughts. A diary of symptoms, ideas, and small escapes.

007 Trigger Run
A paper video game in which a character fights against triggers and collects breaks. But the energy points dwindle faster than you can replenish them.

008 Everyday Exposures
Self-portraits taken during attacks, strung together like a strip from a photo booth. For me, migraine is as commonplace as other people taking vacation selfies.

009 In the Circle of Thoughts
A cycle of blank words describing the mental movie playing out during an attack: Waiting, weighing options, pills, doubt. Migraine is always thinking along with me.

010 Neon Anxiety
Photos of a stove, above them a brain with a glowing amygdala. Pain and anxiety are so closely intertwined that they are almost inseparable.

011 Control (deleted)
A leporello full of natural patterns. Migraine brains see too much – lines, waves, structures. There is also a special beauty in this loss of control.

012 Windows to Participation
Empty medication blisters open windows onto watercolor worlds. The pills offer participation in life, and at the same time, dependence.

013 Decisions in the Pain Room
A game book to flip through: Triptan – yes or no? Every path leads differently, none of them easy. Migraine demands constant decisions.

014 Never Below Four
A pain scale with a movable figure. There is no freedom from pain – everyday life never begins below four.