If you create or own art
concerning menstruation or menopause and are
interested in showing it on thesepages (it's
free!), contact MUM
Marie Claire magazine
(Italian edition) featured several of the
above artists in an article
about this museum and menstruation in 2003.
The newspaper Corriere della Sera (Io Donna
magazine) (Milan, Italy) and the magazine
Dishy (Turkey) showed some of the artists in
2005 in articles about this museum.
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The Art of Menstruation at the Museum of
Menstruation and Women's Health
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The artist writes:
I am a recent fine art graduate
from England whose final year was
spent producing mixed media
sculpture about the negative
impact that patriarchy stemming
from religion has had on women
with regards to menstruation.
Synopsis of work:
Menstruation is still seen as a
'curse' in contemporary western
society, deriving from
Christianity (the fall of Eve) and
women have still not recovered
from these associations. Like many
other cultures in the world to
bleed from an orifice suggests
that there is something wrong. The
fact that a women's sexual organs
are internal, therefore hidden,
suggests that menstruation is
demonized as a contaminant. Due to
this menstruation is openly
"disguised" through sanitary
products, sold to conceal a
natural body function from the
rest of the world, not to
"protect" the wearer from leakage
to smells but everyone else. Women
should feel comfortable in their
own skin, but due to patriarchal
control stemming from
Christianity, they buy into the
belief that menstruation is dirty.
Currently this is a dangerous
cycle (much like the act of
menstruation) and is being passed
on from one generation to the next
leading to a vicious cycle of
cleansing the contamination, and
contamination of the clean. The
solution to the problem is to
externalize this and women's
bodily functions so they are no
longer concealed from the rest of
society, so they are confronted,
discussed, in order to reverse
these conceptions.
My answer to this was a 3-D
mixed media installation of a
mother and her two daughters in a
domestic scenario made of sanitary
products such as tampons, sanitary
towels, natural sea sponge and the
'keeper'.
I was wondering whether you
would consider adding my work to
your site in your section of art
about menstruation. Your website
provided an invaluable resource to
me whilst doing my degree and I
would like to contribute something
back.
Yours sincerely,
Roz Bonnet
NEXT artist:
Luiza Brown
See all the
artists in the links in the
left-hand column.
If you create or own art
concerning menstruation or
menopause and are interested in
showing it on these pages (it's
free!), contact MUM.
© 2006 Roz Bonnet. It is
illegal to reproduce or distribute
work on this Web site in any manner
or medium without written permission
of the author. Please report
suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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