Sarah Eckstine is a photographer from Western Maryland who received her BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art in 2020. She is currently pursuing her MFA at Illinois State University. Sarah’s work is focused on her nearly decade long struggle with chronic illness and chronic pain. She has interstitial cystitis, a chronic bladder disease, and was diagnosed with the sexual dysfunctions vaginismus and vestibulodynia after years of being misdiagnosed and not having her pain believed by doctors. She works with artistic practices such as digital and analog photography, alternative processes, and writing, to create self-portraits and autobiographical work about the subjects surrounding painful sex and the daily hardships of being chronically ill. The work she creates aims to show an unromanticized version of sex, sexuality, and the body, how she has begun to heal both in the physical and the mental, and as a way to open the door for more discussions about female sexual dysfunctions.