Embodied books: experiencing the health humanities through artists' books

"This book investigates how handmade artists' books excite the senses to communicate lived experiences of illness and disability. The combination of text, image, materials, form, and the gesture of turning pages make artists' books a powerful source of expressive potential. These works of art not only enable patients to create meaning from their medical experiences, but also invite healthcare learners to an uncensored read of critiques of Western medicine. Artists' books are gaining in popularity among medical institutions in an age of digital screens due to their intimate handheld, multi-sensory expressions of bodily phenomena that may be difficult or impossible to communicate through words alone. By applying a phenomenological practice of sensing and meaning-making, the author provides step-by-step instructions for creating new artists' books as part of health humanities pedagogies. This book thus serves as a philosophical and pragmatic example of how to experience artists' books within healthcare contexts and why"--