PROTEST, the second self-organised exhibition of Camberwell MA printmakers is on until the 24th of June. "Following a long tradition of printmaking being involved with polititcal protests especially in the field of propaganda posters and information distribution, the works shown in this exhibition intend to extend the boundaries of the terms protest and printmaking likewise, exploring their impact and meaning in a fine art context". (Lisa Wilkens, curator)
I made This is my Blood for the show, protesting against and reappropiating patriarchal blood. The tryptich refers to judeochristian iconography, showing Abraham sacrificing Isaac on one side and a Crucifixion on the other, in the middle, cutting the Bible apart, is an abstract symbol, a vagina-wound inscribbed on red dyed paper. This paper has been dyed with my own menstrual blood, hence subverting Jesus' "This is my Blood" founding words of the Eucharist.
The idea of the wound epitomising the sacrifice of the self or of the son is taken from menstrual symbolism, from female body-experience. The son is sacrificed monthly to bring rebirth in a cycle of creation and death. Performed by the patriarch the only son becomes owned by him, for he is his descent, and is sacrificed to establish a sacred order with God. Thus patriarchy is established, the rule of the Father "on earth as it is in heaven."
The female performative body subverts the iconographic order.
Title: This is my Blood
