Stop Normalizing Our Pain: Art as Advocacy for Black Women’s Health
For Black History Month, This Won’t End Me is holding space for art that speaks to health inequalities, visibility, and the lived experiences of Black and Brown communities.
This year, we invited Black Canadian artists to collaborate on a piece exploring womanhood, reproductive health, and the urgency of listening to women’s pain.
One of those artists is Chawntay Barrett.
Introducing Chawntay Barrett
Chawntay Barrett (she/her) is an emerging artist, facilitator, and arts professional based in the Greater Toronto Area. She holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Guelph (2020) and a Graduate Certificate in Arts Management from Centennial College (2025). Community lies at the heart of Chawntay’s creative practice. An alumna of the ArtWorksTO Next Stream program and The Remix Project, she continues to collaborate with organizations such as VIBE Arts, where she facilitates arts-based learning and community engagement.
Working primarily in oil and acrylic on canvas, Chawntay explores themes of Afro-Caribbean culture and contemporary Black experiences. Her creative practice centers the lived experiences of Black people–particularly women, using art as a tool for visibility, empathy, and connection. It reflects a dialogue between identity, culture, and the evolving narratives of the African diaspora. Her background in biological science and the personal experiences of family and friends opened her eyes to the countless ways in which women and girls are dismissed when facing concerns about their health and well being. Through her art practice she hopes to shed a light on the challenges we face, by sharing our stories and experiences through accessible visual media.
The Art Work
This collaboration centres a bold and urgent message: Stop Normalizing Our Pain. In Chawntay’s design, the uterus becomes both symbol and container, holding words that many Black women have been forced to carry quietly for years. The anatomy is intentional, recognizable, and unapologetic, reclaiming a body part that is so often politicized, dismissed, or misunderstood. The colours red, yellow, and green draw from hues that resonate across the Black diaspora, grounding the piece in cultural familiarity and collective identity. The result is accessible, direct, and non-ostracizing — an artwork that invites conversation rather than alienation. It does not whisper. It states plainly what many have felt for far too long.
Chawntay Barrett x This Won’t End Me
This artwork will also be available as a limited-edition sticker, distributed for free at select TWEM workshops and community events throughout the year. These stickers are not for sale and are intended as small, tangible reminders that our pain is not something to normalize or dismiss.
If you’re unable to attend an event, you can download a free A4 printable version of the artwork below.
This digital download is free for personal use only. Please credit Chawntay Barrett x This Won’t End Me (TWEM) when sharing online or in community spaces. Commercial use, resale, reproduction for profit, or alteration of the artwork is not permitted.
Why This Matters
At TWEM, we believe art can do what policy often fails to do: make pain visible. This piece is not just a design. It is a reminder that dismissal is not normal, that delay is not acceptable, and that our bodies deserve attention and care.
With Gratitude
We are incredibly thankful to Chawntay Barrett for trusting us with her vision and contributing her voice to this moment. Collaborations like this show that change does not only happen in clinical spaces. It also happens in studios, in community rooms, and in conversations where people feel safe to speak honestly. May this artwork travel widely and remind us that dismissal is not normal and that our bodies deserve to be heard.
