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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
Series title: "When
a woman bleeds it's a
act of love."
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"Revelation"
All photos © 2008 Isa Sanz
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of Isa Sanz 1 2 3 4
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The Spanish artist Isa (for
Isabel) Sanz writes,
This series is named
'MENSTRUAL CONSCIOUSNESS,' it is
a photographic work performed in
front of a camera, where the
blood is the nexus between the
individual and the collective
experience. The blood in
menstruation, usually seen as a
taboo, is shown as a sing of
beauty and poetry. According to
Simon Beauvoir said on her book
'The Second Sex', during
menstruation blood represents
the essence of femininity.
Talking to different people,
realized that the way they see
these series depends on the
viewer and his/her social
baggage, and so, meanwhile some
people found this project
extremely beautiful, others have
to confront themselves with
their ideas of beauty and
horror, concerning the act of
bleeding during the
menstruation.
In 'Revelation' [above]
photography the model is not
looking to the camera and it
represents just the moment, a
moment in which the intimated
act is shared with the audience
in a frontal pose. The view of
blood becomes a secondary
reading while the strength the
poetry and the fragility of the
moment is taking part. At first
sight the taboo and shock are
exposed, explicitly performed
for the viewer. We can observe
in all the photos that the
models are in front of the
camera, posing in an advertising
or fashion language. However I
intended to go deeper
constructing new meanings,
rather than to show only the
surface implicit in the image of
blood and the reaction of the
viewer exposed to the violation
of the taboo. In few words, I
intended to explore ideas of
emotion and transformation.
In 'Alchemy' the girl is
posing opposite to the camera
but the message which she is
writing frontally in the white
wall is the punctum, the word
amor which means love in
Spanish, and it reveals my
intentions in this series and my
relation with the blood during
menstruation, seeing my own
blood as a part of a female
nature. I try to represent a
transformation by using the
image of the girl on the photo
as an element in which is the
blood that flows out from her
transforms all the negative
established ideas about
menstruation, showing what had
to be hidden. So building a
semantic message for the viewer,
that is a positive message that
can be read from different
angles.
In an immunized world invaded
by pornographic images of pain,
destruction and suffering, I
think that these kind of
positive ideas have more impact
on the viewer than an image of
destruction. In the times we are
living, a positive message can
be more subversive than a
negative one.
We can perceive that all the
photos are connected by the
blood, and aesthetically
speaking there is a visual
progression, from only one
woman, then two, three and then
a group of females in the
series. This goes from the
individual experience to the act
of sharing the same experience
between a group of women: 'my
blood, your blood our blood',
making a connection with this
Luce Irigarayís idea that
a woman needs first to explore
her link with her own gender to
find her way of express herself.
Isa Sanz
www.isasanz.com
myspace.com/menstrualconsciousness
NEXT page of Isa
Sanz
1 2 3 4
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NEXT
artist: Vladislav
Shabalin
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
thesepages (it's free!), contact
MUM
See
also
Bea Nettles' art The
Moonsisters
© 2008 Harry
Finley. 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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