Subversive Design
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
See Under Wraps at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery in the exhibition Subversive Design – 12th October 2013 to 9th March 2014
Periods are not a public matter and are rarely a subject for art. Menstrual disorders are more hidden still. Disturbances in physiology are managed by medicines, but the management of menstruation is political as well as medical. It is about the management of fertility and part of what it means to be a woman. In many cultures it is about the management of shame, and the prescriptions of medicine compete with the prescriptions of religion in controlling women’s bodies. The Under Wraps cloak contains and conceals the medications we use to control our bodies and is a metaphor for the ambivalence we feel about menstruation.
2013