Narrating Pain with Visual Representation 

A Storytelling Workshop for the Narrative Medicine and Health Humanities Community

Join artist and narrative medicine professional Sal Marx for an interactive workshop that explores how visual art can make space for what language and linear scales of sickness and health fail to address.

Illness doesn’t fit into neat boxes of diagnosis, data, or being understood. How do we listen to someone’s story when language itself falls short? Hear how Sal developed their own Pain Scale, a visual artwork that resists numbers, words, and linearity – as a case study in how visual representation can give us new tools for expression and connection. Through guided creative exercise and group work, we’ll explore how visual art can deepen understanding of complex embodiments, build new perspectives, and offer new ways at connecting around invisible conditions. Everyone will have a chance to make something and share.

CHRONIC IS FOREVER is on view November 6 through December 20, 2026.

SAL MARX is a visual artist, creative director, and chronic illness patient advocate based in Brooklyn, NY.  They have a M.S. in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, where they completed a multimedia capstone exploring the intersection between visual co-creation and disability justice. They studied Public Policy, Psychology, and Media Studies at Pomona College.  Recently, they were a panelist at the Graphic Medicine Conference at Johns Hopkins, speaking about visual projects within chronic illness communities. They have conducted qualitative research culminating in A Graphic Guide to Palliative Care at the Vienna General Hospital, which is now being adapted for pediatric palliative care use at Akron Children’s Hospital. Sal’s work has been shown in the Lied Art Gallery, the Royal Alberta Museum, and has been published on various platforms including Intima, A Journal of Narrative Medicine; Johns Hopkins University Press, and WebMD.   

Sal serves on the board of directors of Sick Futures Collective and the advocacy board of the Spondylitis Association of America.

Image Descriptions:
1. Art by Sal Marx featuring the text “PAIN SCALE WITH MEANING” and a 3×3 grid of nine abstract line drawings on a black background:m white with blue, yellow, and red markings, that evoke emotions through animated faces including a star, moon, cat, heart, robot, and various amorphic shapes.
2. Positive Exposure Gallery poster with the text “SAL MARX: CHRONIC IS FOREVER” and an image of art featuring two skeletons sitting on a blue bench. The background is black and red, with a white crescent moon, and the foreground is golden yellow. The skeletons are drawn in a semi-abstract way, in thick grey, white, black, yellow, and red marks. Their hands are holding at the center of the blue bench.