On Mass Hysteria

The artist’s book On Mass Hysteria: A Proto-Language of Protest (2024), by Laia Abril, investigates mass psychogenic crises as an unconscious, collective language of protest against systems of oppression and transgenerational trauma. Part of the A History of Misogyny project, the book uses historical documentation and three contemporary case studies (Mexico, Cambodia, and the USA), detailing alleged hysteria outbreaks in groups of women and girls who share strict control environments, such as boarding schools and factories. Through collected interviews and testimonies, Abril highlights that socioeconomic factors, neglect, and social pressure act as triggers for the physical manifestation of suffering. By focusing on contexts of social and political oppression, the work redirects the narrative, criticizing the tendency to blame the victims, arguing that ‘hysteria’ is, in fact, the expression of a collective illness.