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- Title
Placenta: A Soft Sculpture for Health Education Opens up an Awkward Dialogue.
- Authors
Vandyk, Rebecca
- Abstract
A giant soft-sculpture model of a human placenta was crafted by a group of women, using recycled t-shirts to create yarn with which to knit the form. It was envisaged as a monument to the hidden work of women: the hidden bodily investment during pregnancy and childbirth, and the ongoing work of the domestic labour required to nurture a family, in a home. However, once finished, the promotion of the artwork to potential exhibiting organisations revealed an interesting phenomenon of social avoidance of even the word, "placenta"--let alone the exhibition of a giant model of one. Current interpersonal interactions and institutions within the Australian population reinforce this social avoidance, the bases of which are explored in this article. First, the collective response to the blood and by-product of women's reproductive processes is suggested to be a modern withdrawal from identifying with personal bodily frailties. Second, within the art world a number of works portray the pregnant woman as heroic and strong, but this is suggested to be an ongoing expression of the worth of women being inherent in their fertility, rather than the works imparting a sense of personal confidence, or an embodied focus for women who birth. Third, social disgust for women's reproductive processes has permeated into birthing women's sense of self, creating notions of disgust and fear, with consequences for labour and post-childbirth. This repudiation of women's reproductive bodies is diametrically opposed to a variety of cross-cultural rituals that seek to honour the birthing woman, her contribution to the next generation, and the work of her body and the placenta. Women's reproductive blood, and the birthed placenta, have been invisible, in hospital deliveries, to women who birth (and their families) for many decades. The giant reappearance of an organ so intimately connected with women's blood, in this red, knitted, monolith Placenta, has been a profound inspiration for community conversation, wherever the sculpture has been exhibited. It has provided an example of how the Arts can enable a health education dialogue, beyond the mere words of health promotion campaigns. Placenta has been exhibited in Gippsland, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Geelong, and continues to tour nationally.
- Subjects
SOFT sculpture; 20TH century sculpture; HEALTH education; CHILDBIRTH; MOTHERHOOD
- Publication
Hecate, 2019, Vol 45, Issue 1/2, p134
- ISSN
0311-4198
- Publication type
Article