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artist statement
My work celebrates the reproductive health practices found in all human societies around the world, from ancient times to the present. These ideas are presented through conceptually based digital media objects and installations. I seek to relay a simple message; women have been active agents in making reproductive choices for as long as civilization has been documented. For this reason, the right to contraception and abortion is a human rights issue, not simply a legal and moral decision to be decided by judges or religious leaders.
Despite the existence of academic scholarship about this history, I’ve found most people believe contraception and abortion methods are recent inventions that occurred as a result of the 20th century women’s liberation movement. In addition, the polarized pro-choice/pro-life reproductive rights debate has been caught between two specific symbols; the hanger and the fetus. In my work, I deconstruct these myths and invite viewers to discover a radically different history of the roots of reproductive choice. My work visualizes the ancestral traditions passed down for millennia by lineages of mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. I believe the rediscovery of these practices is deeply transformative when one considers “the right to choose”, especially for those who have been exposed to the “abstinence until marriage” and “anti-abortion” rhetoric.
Through my studio practice at the School of Art and Design at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, I have created a whimsical, edgy, and thought-provoking poster series using existing historical artifacts, such as artemisia and birthwort, a Malthusian syringe, the menstrual extractor, Anthony Comstock, coitus interruptus of the Ming Dynasty, and Casanova’s condoms. I am also constructing a historical database as a repository for this collection of visual and written history, designing a traveling red tent installation with an abortion stories clothesline, collecting ethnographic video and audio interviews about people’s knowledge of this history, and expanding the poster series to tell more stories about women's agency, empowerment, discrimination, and censorship.
As an emerging artist, I am disseminating my work through social justice activities and networks, such the Wanderlust Reproductive Justice Bicycle Tour, an 1800-mile bike trip from New Orleans to New York City. Through these spaces and activities, I hope to link the ancient history with the growing reproductive health, rights, and justice movements that honor the sexual and reproductive desires of all people.
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