Bodies Unseen: Hysteria’s Stain on Women’s Healthcare

Bodies Unseen is a 5-minute motion graphics piece accompanied by a 12-page zine that explores the historical and ongoing dismissal of women’s pain within the medical system, rooted in the legacy of hysteria. Through the fictionalized stories of Ada, Rosa, and Mabel-women from different time periods who face misdiagnosis and neglect, the project illustrates the persistent gender bias in healthcare. Drawing from historical records, feminist theory, and contemporary research on medical inequity, this work connects past injustices to modern-day disparities in diagnosis and treatment. The animation and zine work in tandem to educate viewers and encourage dialogue about the systemic minimization of women’s health concerns, aiming to foster empathy and raise awareness around an issue often left unspoken. This thesis employs a multidisciplinary design approach, combining frame-by-frame animation, typographic animation, and hand-drawn illustration to communicate complex and emotionally charged content in an accessible, compelling format. The accompanying zine expands on these visual stories with educational context, statistics, and resource recommendations. Both components are unified by an intentional visual style that blends historical reference with contemporary design sensibilities. The design draws inspiration from 18th and 19th-century Gothic visual styles, connecting the aesthetics of hysteria’s historical documentation with modern design tools to reflect on the continued, haunting presence of these ideologies in current medical practices. This project serves as a visual communication strategy aimed at bridging heavy storytelling with data-driven awareness.