One emphasis of Bonajo’s artistic interest is handling emotions. For the photo series Thank you for hurting me. I really needed that... she photographed herself, over the course of several years, whenever she was sad or
feeling hurt. In this way, Bonajo counteracted the conventional, good mood photograph with a ritual of misery and tearfulness. But while the serial nature of these works already diminishes the pathos, the title refers to the fact “that feelings of discomfort are natural, sometimes we cause them ourselves, and ultimately the responsibility for our states of emotion lies in our own hands”
(Karin Schulze in Living Like Plants, 2012)