During my Masters, the pelvis was the site of primary interest and media was chosen to articulate subjects such as loss of control, intervention, fragility and lack of care.
Archeaological bones were represented to investigate the temporal issues with regard to female bodily agency. Unfired porcelain sculptures of the interior negative space of the pelvis were painted on canvas.
The painting process allows for intimate studies of the fingerprints and marks left by its creation in an attempt to underscore institutional interference within the female body. Soap carvings informed by Sheelagh-na-ghig imagery offered a re-imagined future of strength through collaboration (some were carved during workshops with groups of women) and celebration of the divine feminine.
The work addresses a number of issues in relation to the political and social concerns around issues of bodily agency and the role of institutional control and regulation of the female body. This work has been further informed by research into Symphysiotomy procedures in Ireland during the period of 1944-1984.
In my work I intend to; through a re materialisation of these events and images synthesizes the notion of a shared historical and social memory with how the body remembers these events of trauma and pain.