Menstru/action

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I stand behind a table and ask those present: How many of those who are menstruating, how do they live those days, how do they collect their blood? While we exchange experiences, I place on the table three scissors, three cloths in the shape of menstrual dressing and three cloths. Each of them has a threaded thread. I continue to ask: Do you remember how it was the first time it came to you, how you learned what menstruation was, what it would be like if the ritual of passage towards the first menstruation was a collective construction of the first wipes to use? At the same time, I ask if they can help me and offer the cloths with the needle and show them where to go sewing and where to cut. As I begin to sew and cut, I turn on an audio where the poem “Menstruation” by Gioconda Belli is heard, crossed with information about the contamination produced by disposable menstrual dressings and tampons on the earth and bodies. At the same time a video is projected on my body with images of María Sabina and Abuela Margarita.

I turn off the audio. On the table I place a font and inside red petals that I am removing from a bouquet of roses.

I stir the petals and ask people to place the dressings made during the talk there. I start to sing while I wash the dressings in that petal water.

I place the dressings on the table.

I walk letting the petals fall, marking a red trace of my steps.

Ritual of passage towards the consciousness of our blood and our bodies. I invite those present to make natural menstrual dressings, while we share their own experiences and our ancestral referents tell us theirs.

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PLACE

Call for the Umbral Performance Match – Umbral Espacio de Arte. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.

DATE

August 2018

PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD

Valeria Erlijman