Therapeutic Landscapes | Jessica Philbrick

Jessica (29, she/her) is a Fine Arts and Psychology graduate who bridged her painting practice into her Masters research project on The Therapeutic Landscape of the Home When Homebound with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

In using her practice of creating oil paintings of domestic interior spaces, she was able to explore and represent insights into the homespace of five people in Aotearoa (pseudonyms used) who are homebound by their ME/CFS. The details of these paintings derived from in-depth interviews structured around the concept of Therapeutic Landscapes which examines the built, natural, social and symbolic environments of a space dedicated to health experiences.

The concept enables a conversation on the relationship between person and space, in this instance, the relationship between a person with ME/CFS and the space of their home and how they experience it as healing or therapeutic in relation to their symptoms and illness experience.

This exhibition was generously funded by ANZMES and serves as research dissemination and community engagement with insights of living with ME/CFS to better understand this illness.