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| RIP PHIL 2021 Helen Judge |
Perforated Woman 2 Helen Judge
Performance By Cathy Dunbar
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Menopause The Bleed Collection Cathy Dunbar |
What would happen if we re-defined Menopause not just as a time of change, but as a coming out, a re-emergence of our Pre-menstrual self...free of the shackles of our rhythmic body, older, wiser and with no time to lose?
In conversation with family, friends and other women I found that Menopause was something: not to be mentioned, not spoken about, awful, a loss of purpose, the beginning of the end, painful, disorientating. Those I spoke to described a continual feeling of anger and frustration and felt more often than not pathologised, ‘treated', ignored.
I took an old worn blouse belonging to my Mother, threads that came from my Grandmothers sewing basket and fabrics leftover from clothes making as far back as my Great Grandmother.
Then using the slow deliberation of hand stitching to depict the science of the hormones and their slow but deliberate movement from one period of life to another, with machine stitching and torn coloured fabric to illustrate the more emotional and uncertain elements of this journey.
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| Blank Page Andy Little |
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| Handmade Red Shoes Cathy Dunbar |
Inspired by The Red Shoes, an archetypal fairytale
from ‘Women who run with the wolves’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, this is a book I
have used and go back to for reference and ideas. This piece
of art has had many lives.
These artworks illustrate the brutal loss of the individual self to obsession and addiction trying to be good, normalising what is abnormal to your instinctual self, feeling and being trapped (The Gilded Cage), and the slow returning to oneself (Handmade Red Shoes).
As an artist
and a woman, this has been about what happens when you try to make art that
fits into a male and capitalist-oriented system: devaluing my inner soul,
ignoring my instincts and my own art and having the confidence that I/it is good enough.
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| Chemigram 1 Emanuela Cusin |
As lockdown
neared the end I became more and more alarmed by the government’s insistence
that we should go back to ‘normal’. I was concerned because what had
been viewed as ‘normal’ was unsustainable to me and to everyone I spoke to, on
so many levels. I felt that the Covid crisis and subsequent lockdowns had been
an opportunity to rethink how we live in our communities and the wider
world.
We have a
climate crisis (declared by Cambridge City Council); at the same time, we have
a social crisis, and in Cambridge, the divide between rich and poor is the
greatest in the country. This inequality of life was deepening and dividing our
communities, making it impossible to move forward in a sustainable way. In my
view, central government was doing nothing to alleviate our fears on any of
these scores and, in fact, was actively widening the divide.
When
completed, the artwork was intended to carry the message, Whose City? Our City! Make Cambridge Cleaner, Safer and more Equal.
We have the
power to create a better future, cleaner air and water, quieter roads and
skies, more equality and understanding, more kindness, more love. Only we can
do it. No change. No Future.
