Aggressive flesh the obese female other
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Aggressive Flesh: The Obese Female Other
Hannah Broom, Bachelor of Fine Art (Visual Art) (Hons)
School/Centre: CIRAC
Thesis submitted for degree of: Masters by Research (Visual Art) 2005
Catalogue Keywords:
Visual Art, Practice-Led Research, Obesity, Fat, Monstrous-feminine, SheMonster, Female Grotesque, Other, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Autobiography,
Subjectivity, Abjection, Carnivalesque, Photography, Performance art, The
Uncanny, Trauma, Identity, Trickster, Vampire, Young British Art, Sarah Lucas,
Hayley Newman, Carolee Schneeman, Eleanor Antin, Ruth Salvaggio, Julia
Kristeva, Sigmund Freud, Helene Cixous.
Abstract:
My visual art practice explores the point at which a sense of bodily humour and
revulsion may intersect in the world of the monstrous-feminine: the female
grotesque, presented as my own obese (and post-obese) body. This exegesis is
a written elucidation of my visual art practice as research.
As an artist I create performative photographic images featuring taboo or
otherwise ‘inappropriate’ subject matter, situations, materials and behaviours
including bodily fluids, offal, internal organs and my own post-obese body.
Through these modes of working, I establish and investigate the subjectivity of
flesh: Why are we repulsed by the female grotesque? How can this flesh be used
to subvert readings of the female body?
My research is informed by those understandings of the female body, sexuality
and difference described in the work of feminist theorists including Julia Kristeva,
Helene Cixous, Ruth Salvaggio and Elizabeth Grosz. I explore the work of
influential artists such as Eleanor Antin, Carolee Schneeman, Cindy Sherman
and Sarah Lucas. In this context, I present my own visual art practice as a point
from which the monstrous-feminine can be given voice as sentient, intelligent
flesh.
2
Table of Contents
Introduction: Research Problems
Questions of the She-Monster
7
Chapter One: Interpretative Paradigms
Investigative Feminism
11
Chapter Two: Methodology
Feminist Art Practice
15
Chapter Three: Body as Locus
The Abject, Grotesque and Carnivalesque
20
Five Artists of Influence:
Antin, Schneeman, Sherman, Newman and Lucas
34
Conclusion
51
Bibliography
64
3
Images
Untitled Self Portrait (c.1993)
6
Cavemen (2005)
22
Bush Oysters (series) (2005)
30
Bush Oysters (series) (2005)
31
Carving (1973) Eleanor Antin
34
Interior Scroll (1978) Carolee Schneeman
35
Untitled (2003)
36
Bite Size (2003)
37
I wear my heart on my sleeve, sometimes (2004)
40
Untitled #178 (1990) Cindy Sherman
41
Meditating on Gender Difference (1996) Hayley Newman
44
The Rape (1927) Rene Magritte
47
Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab (1992) Sarah Lucas
48
Got a Salmon On (Prawn) (1994) Sarah Lucas
50
Hold My Tongue (series) (2005)
57
Hold My Tongue (series) (2005)
58
Hold My Tongue (series) (2005)
59
Suckers exhibition documentation (2005)
60
Suckers exhibition documentation (2005)
61
Suckers exhibition documentation (2005)
62
Suckers exhibition documentation (2005)
63
4
Statement of Original Authorship
“The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree
or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge
and belief, the theisis contains no material previously published or written by
another person except where due reference is made”
Signature
_________________________________
Date
_________________________________
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Conclusion
This exegesis forms the written component of my Masters by Research. On
Tuesday, 22nd February 2005, I presented my final, examinable creative
component in an exhibition entitled suckers. Attendance saw between 30-50
visitors on opening night and an unknown number of viewers during the course of
the two-week show.
The exhibition took place at the university gallery in Kelvin Grove, Brisbane. The
gallery links the arts administration offices to the rest of the faculty and the
university campus. As such, a wide variety of people have no alternative but to
pass through the gallery on a daily basis. During the course of the exhibition, the
university received three official complaints from members of the public about the
graphic nudity depicted by the imagery, prompting the inclusion of multiple
additional warnings, signage and screens.
Interestingly, the focal point of the complaints were not those photographs that
directly exposed the grotesque female vagina shown in the Bush Oysters or
Cavemen series, but instead concerned the larger scale images, Hold My
Tongue in which I positioned an ox tongue as if it was a phallus against my body.
This in itself has been an interesting aspect of the exhibition process. It raises
some fascinating questions and concerns for my future work; at what point do we
give our consent for exposure to imagery we find shocking within a gallery/non
gallery setting? How might that consent vary in accord with different audiences including those who have had little previous exposure to visual art? These issues
constantly shift and change depending on many variable factors including the
venue, format and context in which I present the work.
Those works featured in suckers constitute three separate series of works,
interlinked within the consistent themes of my female body as locus, the
monstrous-feminine, consumption and excess. In Hold My Tongue (2005) the
51
work may be read in several different ways. The presence of the tongue may be
read as a prosthetic, replacement phallus, or indeed, as an extension of the
female genitalia. It is positioned in a masturbatory stance, grasped in one hand.
In several of the images, the bottom of the tongue is suggestive of the cleft of the
vaginal opening and in others, the tongue stands ÔerectÔ before the contents of an
open refrigerator.
Through these seemingly contradictory readings, I draw
attention to the interplay and complex relationships that exist between the realms
of food, femininity, sexuality, the body and the tongue as the physical
manifestation of the body speaking, the body as locus; the female voice. These
are themes that many can relate to in their every day life; the chaos of conflicting
cultural messages that frequently define acceptable bodily shape through either
excessive consumption of food, or excessive rejection of it. In a world saturated
with the synthetic pursuit of perfection, the notion of the Ôideal bodyÕ, it has been
my experience that these literally unsustainable states of excess are deemed
shameful, guilty taboo secrets to be hidden and never talked about.
In Cavemen, the viewer is confronted by a smaller series of prints that position
miniature, mass-produced childrenÕs toys in relation to the vagina. These toys are
specifically codified in terms of traditional ÔboyÕ toys and Ôgirl toysÕ; small, green
plastic soldiers and pink, featureless baby dolls. The work presents perhaps the
two most common misreading of the female body in our culture - The scale of the
works present the vagina as monstrously huge Ð the female body as a hostile
landscape for exploration or as baby factory. The vagina becomes cave-like,
literally depicting the monstrous-feminine, through the descriptions of the female
grotesque as Ôgrotto-esqueÕ or Ôcave-likeÕ (Russo, 1995). Who knows what lurks
within the darkness? She does.
As detailed in a previous chapter of this exegesis, the Bush Oysters series
functions through an association between the smell of seafood and female
genitalia, as well as a visual mirroring of appearance of both oysters and vagina.
Due to the more technically more explicit nature of these images, they and the
52
Cavemen series were enclosed in a smaller, separate installation room, leading
off from the larger gallery space. Interestingly, several viewers remarked to me
that they found the images more ÔcomfortingÕ than threatening and more
ÔamusingÕ than grotesque.
This allusion to the fact that the works, Hold my Tongue, were more
offensive/shocking/confronting, despite exposing no actual genital flesh, prompts
me to examine why this should occur. The ox tongue in the works does have a
distinct visual similarity to a penis which draws me to question if and why we
might find the depiction of male genitalia to be more offensive/shocking than
female; is it due to more frequent societal exposure to the vagina in pornography
and indeed, wider culture? Is the penis deemed less mutable, less changeable?
Does itÕs positioning as a symbol of a phallocentric culture make it ÔholyÕ
somehow? Is its transgression and dissection (particularly given itÕs humorous
context) therefore viewed as ÔsacrilegiousÕ in some way and thus prompts a
greater reaction?
The tongue appears in a masturbatory and sexual context (another highly
charged, social taboo) and the cut edge, exposing internal nerve tissue and
muscular fibre, could be seen in some way as a manifestation of violence against
the phallus. That it was hacked out. In one of the images, this reading is perhaps
further compounded by the inclusion of a metal meat tenderiser mallet, banging
against the surface of the tongue as phallus. Through the body of my research, I
have certainly developed a theoretical understanding through the work of Freud
in which the penis is seen as the ÔactiveÕ, the vagina as ÔpassiveÕ; does this
entrenched, passive reading of the vagina therefore make itÕs violation more
ÔacceptableÕ and less shocking as a result? Is violence against passivity more
acceptable? Have the readings of genital organs in this context become
mythologised in contemporary western culture?
53
In my practice-led research, I view these questions as healthy symptoms of a
need for further investigation. I view them as a sign that my research touches on
complex areas that, by their very nature, yield no singular, satisfactory ÔanswerÕ.
These questions offer the opportunity for a range of subjective responses, a
plurality of possible meanings. For me, they open up the question of whether in
fact it is actually possible to ÔknowÕ the answer to these questions and whether
research does in fact, need to have a definitive ÔanswerÕ. In my mind, to define an
area of investigation by the ability to formulate a concise, distinct and detailed
question about that area is, in many ways, to ÔanswerÕ it. The research questions
I list above represent just some of the possible directions in which my work could
now travel. It is my intent to further investigate these questions through both my
research and exhibition processes both now and into the future.
To my mind, these questions are also evidence of the means through which the
she-monster or monstrous-feminine can successfully function as a theoretical
and conscious point of departure, as locus for critical debate; as a subjective
perspective, not just as a thing, an object or a Ôslab of meatÕ. As a body of work,
Hold my Tongue has been particularly useful in helping me begin to formulate a
clearer understanding of the monstrous-feminine and how my speaking of it has
shifted my position from that of victim expressing trauma, alienation and
disempowerment to one grounded in empowerment and strength. Making the
work literally allowed me to revel in flesh and through that process, to challenge
societal reactions and perceptions of it.
My understanding and application of the monstrous-feminine and the SheMonster continue to evolve and develop as part of my practice. Deepening my
understanding of these terms will continue to be a core theme for my research.
Exhibiting these pieces has made me much more aware of the alternate (and
often prevailing) readings presented by the works. I may make and read both my
work and the work of others from within the perspective of the She-monster, but
they are not so clearly defined or understood by other viewers. As an artist, I can
54
definitely identify a certain point at which I become less affected by the explicit
content of my practice. Exposure to such content on a daily basis inevitably
numbs all but the immediate reaction to it. I have, on occasion, become so
involved in the theoretical and emotional content in my work, that I develop Ôsnow
blindnessÕ to itÕs affect as images on a public who have no understanding of
those areas of interest or concern, be they theoretical, feminist or
autobiographical.
This realisation is not unique to my own practice, but forms part of a larger
problematic for all visual art. That is, the inevitable differences that arise between
the artistÕs intention and the viewers perception. For example, as I noted in
chapter 3, Sarah Lucas did not at first recognise the interplay and visual similarity
between her own Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab and MagritteÕs The Rape until it
was pointed out to her. A similarity that has undoubtedly contributed to the
overall success and visual power of the work. (Collings, 2002, p38) The informed
ability to consider these additional readings and then either (as in LucasÕ case)
integrate or alternately reject these understandings hi-lights the subjective
qualities of all visual art for both viewer and artist alike. At their most basic level,
these questions act as fuel for critical debate.
One of the biggest developments in my work to date is therefore my own sense
of defiance, that I would rather have a ÔdangerousÕ art practice that sometimes
makes mistakes and crosses the lines because thatÕs how we know that that the
lines are there. I would rather feel awkward and uneasy, than complacent about
the power and context of my art and the world around me. Without this sense of
risk, of danger and uncertainty, I question how my work would have evolved and
if it would have been ÔsuccessfulÕ at all. Without mistakes, questions, feedback
and revisions, what impetus would there be for change, development and for the
evolution of my practice?
55
To this end, it is not always easy to move against the flow. There have been
times where I have given parts of my arts practice over to what I thought was
expected, needed or wanted; By the art scene, by the academic and research
community, by my mentors, family and even by myself. There have been times
where I have given myself over so completely to the psychoanalytical and
feminist theory that informs my work, that I have lost the sense of the tightrope
that lies beneath my feet. At times, I have been blinded by the feedback of
emotional static that catches me, unaware. To me, this is part of what it is to
explore the She-Monster; to do so consciously lest she catch you off-guard. I
suspect there will be occasions in the future where, in a momentary lapse of selfbelief, I may make these mistakes again. What I have learnt through these first,
faltering steps though, is that there is a tightrope of sorts, out there. From each
mistake I have made, each moment in which I have struggled to once again find
my sense of balance, I have gained a deeper connection to the essence of my
work, to my practice; to the sensation of the rope beneath my feet. I believe that
the role of my practice is to feel for this guiding line, as if it were Braille, beneath
the layers of blood and organs and other assorted detritus.
56
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Introduction: Research Problems
Questions of the She-Monster
My practice explores the point at which bodily humour and revulsion may
intersect through the context of my own post-obese, female body. As an artist, I
create photographic and performative works that combine abject, taboo or
otherwise ÔinappropriateÕ subject matter, materials and behaviours with my own
flesh.
As an artist and as a researcher, my body is central to my work. It is a locus for
my practice both as a site, subject and object for artwork, but also as the physical
point from which I survey and engage with the work of other artists, theorists,
society and the world around me. I cite my body as a locus in response to a
range of feminist and psychoanalytical theories that explore the separation
between the realms of mind and body in contemporary western culture and their
subsequent coding as ÔmaleÕ and ÔfemaleÕ respectively. This includes the work of
Julia Kristeva, Elizabeth Grosz and Helene Cixous. I will discuss and explore
these theories and their impact on my practice in further detail as outlined in the
following chapters.
My understanding of my body as locus has also been shaped by my own,
subjective experience of my obese female flesh as grotesque. My personal
experience of a specifically female body that provokes fear, anger, loathing and
revulsion has led me to explore, deconstruct and subvert our reactions (both as
individuals and as part of a societal whole) towards flesh that we perceive as
ÔOtherÕ, through my visual art practice.
The obese (and post obese) body may be seen to function as a type of
aggressive flesh, consuming the space around it, moving closer. This is the
threat of the obese body as metastases; viral, cancerous, infectious. (Yudice,
1990, p32) Similarly, Feminist theorists such as Susan Bordo have cited the
cultural coding of the ÔfemaleÕ as ÔbodilyÕ (Bordo, 1993, p3) and argued that the
7
female body is also read as a site for potential mess, desire and excess, usually
contained or hidden beneath a cosmetic surface. (Betterton, 1996, p130)
This double coding of the obese, female body as Other and the response of
society that simultaneously fears, ridicules and shuns it, coupled with my
personal experience of this as a physical reality have all lead me to explore the
points at which laughter and repulsion intersect in the world of what Barbara
Creed terms Ôthe monstrous-feminineÕ. (Creed, 1999, p51)
My understanding of the monstrous-feminine has shifted and evolved as a
natural consequence of the continued development of my practice and through
the actual, physical experience of a changing body shape. My experience of the
monstrous-feminine was initially founded in trauma, disempowerment and
victimisation; in the experience of what it was to be alienated, rejected and feared
by society because of my obese, monstrous flesh. By owning my body as an
expression of the monstrous-feminine, I have instead been able to use my
monstrous-femininity from a position of power; as a tool to subvert and challenge
those prevailing societal dialogues and discourses that inform our
understandings (and reactions to) of issues of gender, sexuality and identity and
their complex relationship to the female body.
Throughout the body of this exegesis, I use both ÔShe-monsterÕ and ÔmonstrousfeminineÕ as terms to reference the state of horror and/or repulsion induced by
the presence of uncontained or otherwise uncontrolled female flesh, described by
Rosemary Betterton as Òbody-horrorÓ (1996, p130). But I also utilise the term, the
ÔShe-MonsterÕ as a means of illustrating how my relationship with the monstrousfeminine has changed. The ÔShe-monsterÕ as an expression of the monstrousfeminine further references the direct, subjective empowering experience of
being monstrous-female flesh. She gives voice to the monstrous-feminine and
recenters it as both an intelligent, bodily locus for critical discourse and as a
theoretical perspective from which I engage.
8
By owning my voice as artist and researcher as that of the She-Monster, I have
begun to reclaim and subvert those discourses and dialogues that pre-empt our
understandings of the Othered-body: I am able to speak both about her and as
her, each perspective being equally informed by the same, lived history of the
obese female body. This in turn, opens up spaces within my practice where my
work may deviate and evolve from the literal depiction of the monstrous-feminine,
but I am able to create work informed by my personal and theoretical perspective
as She-Monster. It is not my belief that the she-monster must be read into every
piece of work that I make or view (she would not be a monster if she didnÕt ebb
and flow, vanish and reappear without warning) but still, she maintains an
important and constant influence in every area of my practice.
Through this text, I will attempt to mark out numerous research areas that have
been focal points for my practice. I have broken down this exegesis into three
separate chapters. The first details my interpretative paradigms, the second my
methodology and the third discusses the implications and effects of utilising my
body as a central point for my practice. The conclusion is an appraisal of the
creative component of my research degree, my final exhibition, suckers. As the
reader will note, this exegesis does not contain a literature review as a separate
chapter. Instead, it may be found woven throughout the entire body of the text, in
order to better elucidate the nature of my practice and the process through which
it may be understood as research.
Chapter One of this exegesis will address the interpretative paradigms in my
practice. I understand my Ôinterpretative paradigmsÕ to be the rules by which I
understand and engage with my practice. These discourses and frameworks
include those modes of Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Autobiography concerned
with the complex relationship between the female body, identity and western
culture. I will present these interpretative paradigms through my own
understanding of my body as locus for my practice.
9
Chapter Two explores my methodological concerns. I understand my
ÔmethodologyÕ to be the methods by which I create my work; these methods
include (and extend beyond) journaling, creating and documenting artwork, the
exhibition process, peer review and critique, reflective and/or creative writing and
interpretation. I will explore these methods and describe their use within the
research model commonly known as practice-led research.
Chapter Three consists of two sections that explore the effects and implications
generated by my use of my body as a locus for my practice. The first examines
theories of abjection, humour, the grotesque and carnivalesque and their
influence on my work. The second presents five female artists of particular
interest to my practice; Eleanor Antin, Carolee Schneeman, Cindy Sherman,
Hayley Newman and Sarah Lucas. Each of these artists investigates the
constructs of their (our) identity as woman through often humorous performative
and photographic works that reference the experience of their own flesh.
The conclusion to this exegesis is presented as an appraisal of the creative
component of this exegesis, my final exhibition, suckers. It presents an overview
of further research questions generated by the exhibition, details my research
findings and discusses how my understandings have changed as a result of my
research process. Through my conclusion, I elucidate the future direction for my
continued research in this field.
10
Chapter One: Interpretative Paradigms
Investigative Feminism
My practice is informed by Feminism as an interpretative paradigm and has
subsequently led me to engage with both psychoanalytical theory and
autobiography. Each of these paradigms provides me with different modes of
understanding the complex relationships that exist between the female body,
constructs of identity and western culture.
The Feminism that fuels my own research is founded in the work of several
French Feminists, most notably Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous. From the
1970s onwards, this group of feminists delved into psychoanalytical theory,
combining it with other fields such as philosophy and linguistics. As Alison Martin
describes, ÒThey investigate concepts and issues elided or denied by an
intellectual left previously dominated by existentialism and Marxism: sexuality,
sexual difference, subjectivity, the unconscious, the body, writing. They insist
upon the necessity of changes to the cultural symbolic order and to the
constitution of subjectivity if actual change is to realised.Ó (Martin, 2005, p4)
Feminism provides multiple modes of understanding the relationships that exist
between the female body and the culture in which it resides. In my practice, this
has included a specific investigation into the societal separation between mind
and body and the effects of the subsequent codification of these two realms as
male and female respectively. Historically, the mind has been viewed as the
domain of the ÔmaleÕ, the body as excess and uncontrollable processes as
ÔfemaleÕ. As Susan Bordo notes ÒThe cost of such projections to women is
obvious. For if, whatever the specific historical content of the duality, the body is
the negative term, and if women is the body, then women are that
negativityÓ(1993, p3) In ÔFeminist EpistemologiesÕ, Elizabeth Grosz describes this
Ôcrisis of reasonÕ as Òa consequence of the historical privileging of the purely
conceptual or mental over the corporeal; that is, it is a consequence of the
inability of western knowledges to conceive their own processes of (material)
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production, processes that simultaneously rely on and disavow the role of the
bodyÓ(Grosz, 1993, p187)
Grosz identifies two main approaches to the theorizing of the body in twentiethcentury radical thought. The first she describes as the ÒinscriptiveÓ body and is
concerned with the affect of exterior forces (how the body may be marked, read,
inscribed upon) and the second as the Òlived bodyÓ which is more concerned with
the interior experience of corporeality. Grosz doubts whether these two
approaches are compatible or capable of synergy, but argues that they Òprovide
some of the theoretical terms necessary to problematize the major binary
categories defining the body Ð inside/outside, subject/object, active/passive,
fantasy/reality and surface/depthÓ (Grosz, 1993, p187)
There is undoubtedly a danger in reducing Woman down to her biological
makeup; ÒWoman has ovaries, a uterus; these peculiarities imprison her within
the limits of her own natureÓ(De Beauvoir, 2004, p292) The implications of the
privileging of the (male) mind over (female) body are far reaching; in my
understanding, women have, for too long, been apologetic in arguing and
expressing the validity of their subjective, bodily experience as a source of
knowledge. Knowledge is instead largely defined and then assigned value in
terms of what is deemed to be objective, rational and logical and thus, ÔmindfulÕ
and deemed ÔusefulÕ. The question is, more useful to whom?
I have a particular interest in readings of the codified body of the female Other,
as explored through the work of Elizabeth Grosz, Rosemary Betterton, Helene
Cixous, Mary Russo and Ruth Salvaggio. Throughout this exegesis, I will
illustrate and reference the work of these theorists and show how they have
informed my own practice as research. These theorists equip me with an
understanding in which there are certain experiences and knowledges that
cannot be expressed in words as we commonly use them. Acknowledging the
role of the noisy clamour of multiple meanings in writing (and visual artwork)
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provides exceptionally fertile ground for establishing and expanding on the
validity of non-linear, subjective knowledges and understandings, particularly in
relation to the female voice. But, as Ruth Salvaggio notes, that same multiplicity
can equally threaten to engulf us, to collapse in on us to the point where all
meaning descends into chaos. To that end, as well as examining exactly what
these meanings are, we must also look at how they are formed; Òwe need a more
nuanced theory of ÒvoiceÓ that accounts for itÕs complex contexts and strategies
of articulation. How can a cry feed into critical utterage? How do certain mobile
narratives shape a knowing message? What is the critical conduit between
tongue and thought?Ó(Salvaggio, 1999, p151)
Through my engagement with Feminism, psychoanalytical theory has long had
an immense influence on my understanding of my practice. In particular, I point
to those whose work explores the effects of the abject in relation to the mindbody divide, repression and the uncanny, as outlined by Sigmund Freud (1919)
and Julia Kristeva (1989). These areas of psychoanalytical theory acknowledge
the very real relationship between these two manifestations of ÔselfÕ. By their very
nature, they emphasise the validity of the internal experience of external force
such as societal norms, value and trauma on the body. Psychoanalytical theory
acknowledges the role of our past in shaping the self, from our socialisation as
children, through to our interactions with the people around us today.
I view the Autobiographical elements included in both my practice as research
and my resultant exegesis, to be a logical extension of those Feminist and
Psychoanalytical theories that affirm and explore the relationship between
knowledge and the experience of the subject. I point to theories of the female
voice (Salvaggio, 1999) as a means of reclaiming my own voice as both woman
and artist in contemporary western society. Autobiography presents itself as a
logical method to both access and voice the information and understandings
contained within the paradigms of feminism and psychoanalysis: My work is
undoubtedly influenced by my past and in the words of Julia Kristeva, Ònaming
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suffering, exalting it, dissecting it into its smallest components Ð that is doubtless
a way to curb mourning. To revel in it at times, but also to go beyond it, moving
onto another form not so scorching, more and more perfunctory.Ó (1989, p97) I
use autobiography in a theoretical context through which every theme, issue and
understanding is ultimately experienced by us, the lived body and exists within
us.
I put forward my own considered and appropriate autobiographical elements as a
means of conveying certain wider knowledges and understandings that cannot
be accurately conveyed in ÔobjectiveÕ terms or would otherwise go unsaid. I
perceive myself as an individual filled with my own subjective understandings,
but through my exposure and investigation of psychoanalytic and feminist
theories of the body, also understand my role as that of a ÔmirrorÕ, reflecting back
those invisible societal currents that shape us. As such, I am not just myself, but
one of many who are subject to these same forces. I therefore cite my usage of
the first person throughout this text, in conjunction with certain autobiographical,
poetic, metaphorical and otherwise non-linear design elements as means of
elucidating further those knowledges that cannot easily be said, within the realms
of my practice as research.
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Chapter Two: Methodology
Feminist Art Practice
ÒListen to a woman speak at a public gathering (if she hasnÕt painfully lost her wind). She doesnÕt
ÔspeakÕ, she throws her trembling body forward; she lets go of herself, she flies; all of her passes
into her voice, and itÕs with her body that she vitally supports the ÔlogicÕ of her speech. Her flesh
speaks true. She lays herself bare. In fact, she physically materializes what sheÕs thinking; she
signifies it with her body. In a certain way, she inscribes what sheÕs saying, because she doesnÕt
deny her drives the intractable and impassioned part they have in speaking. Her speech, even
when ÔtheoreticalÕ or political, is never simple or linear or ÔobjectifiedÕ, generalized: she draws her
story into history.Ó (Cixous, 2004, p297)
Have you ever felt your breath catch, uninvited in your throat? Have you been
betrayed by words that should seem obvious and yet, still manage to escape
you? This is a common reaction to my artwork for many viewers and also, at
times, for myself. There is a childish, guilty joy in making work that exposes bare
flesh, genital organs and body fluids; strange, subversive pleasures in shocking
people. But there is also a deep, internal sense of horror. Horror aroused by the
part of me that refuses to be silent and still, to be the passive and polite woman.
Horror at the cultural control that lives inside me: that functions through me.
IÕve always been able to write about my work, to engage in long conversations
with keyboard and screen, pen and paper. I can stand up in front of audiences
and let words flow freely at will. I enjoy public speaking, just as I love to write.
But, in this speaking, there are also moments where words escape me. Where
my mouth becomes dry, my tongue thick and useless. In moments like those, I
want to reach for a pen, to scrawl the words I seek so desperately against the
pristine gallery walls. In moments like those, it is as if my tongue does not belong
to me; and in fact, it doesnÕt.
You see, Artists arenÕt supposed to be struck dumb by their own work.
Particularly those engaged in postgraduate research degrees. But, when all is
said and done, there are some things that just canÕt be said easily or cleanly and
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