Our Bodies Are Not the Problem, 2021-22

printed curtain and acrylic paintings on canvas with wooden dowels and string

The exhibition begins with a series of painted diagrams, based on images from the various English language editions of the women’s health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves, dating from the 1970s until today, as well as the more recent Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. Although they are reminiscent of the instructional posters that one might find on the wall of a doctor’s office, the images reflect a broad set of issues related to women’s health. These range from reproductive health and abortion to domestic violence, self-defence, working conditions, trans experience and lesbian relationships. The book was first published in the USA by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective in 1970 and has been revised, republished, and repurposed around the world. It came about as the result of Women’s Liberation workshops, in which women gathered to learn about their own bodies and how to demand their care needs, from a medical establishment that they viewed as paternalistic and condescending.

The title Bringing Down the Flowers is a euphemistic expression – which apparently was used in the past to describe the process of inducing an abortion and bringing on menstruation. The paintings represent an unwritten 'catalogue' of hidden knowledge about female health, which would largely have been passed on orally between generations of women.

Many of the exercises are based on The Angel in the House (1854–62), a nineteenth century poem by Coventry Patmore. It celebrates the housewives who devote themselves to the comfort of their husband and master, limiting the scope of their ambitions to the private domestic sphere. The group slowly begins to rebel against the constraints of the exercises with their voices, choking on their words, speaking at a hysterically high pitch, or cackling like witches.

Hold Hold Fire, 2019

video installation and drawings

The camera follows the actions of a group of contemporary women as they engage in a self-defence class. The video dwells on the bodily and collective tactics women can learn to resist everyday violence, as well as police aggression, and take ownership of a situation. In the two-channel film, we see the women struggle to overcome the taboos surrounding female aggression and anger. As they rehearse movements and practise Jiu-Jitsu throws, the participants build up to a recreation of an archival photograph of The People’s Army – a self-defence group that was part of the East London Federation of the Suffragettes (ELFS) – posing with guns in a public park in London, circa 1914. The video’s ultimate image is something like a tableaux vivant, or a moving history painting, which takes place in front of a painted theatrical backdrop of the park.

Hold Hold Fire was first shown at the 34th Bienal de São Paulo in 2021.