Art depicting menstruation has been around for centuries in South Asian culture, as can be seen from the 6th Century sculpture of the fertility goddess Lajja Gauri. In the west, Judith Chicago’s 1970’s work depicting the menstruation experience, ‘Red Flag’ and ‘Menstruation Bathroom,’ are widely accepted as the first of its kind in western contemporary art. The image of removing a tampon was part of Chicago’s determination to openly express her experiences as a woman. She said ‘the medium is the message,’ as she tried to abolish what she called ‘menstrual denial.’ In those days she was considered a radical artist. She explained: ‘I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that…feminism is humanism.’
The term ‘menstrala’ or menstrual art was a term coined by Vanessa Tiegs in 2000. It was the name she gave to her 88 period paintings which she created over three years. Over the past twenty years depictions of menstruation in films, novels, comic books, art installations, graffiti and even wall murals have become more common. Most recently, the erotic finance thriller Fair Play (2023) starts with a period sex scene, where the main character Emily hooks up with her fiancé Luke at a wedding. Period blood is shown spilt all over her dress and Luke’s mouth but is treated like normal bodily fluid. The director, Chloe Domont said her aim was to show there is no disgust, no shock, just an acceptance of periods as an ordinary occurrence, as sometimes happens in real life.
In 2022, at the start of the Iranian uprising against the death of Mahsa Amini, Kurdish artist Zehra Dogan used her menstrual blood to paint the revolution slogan of ‘zen, zindagi, azadi’ on the walls of the Iranian embassy in Berlin. She explained that she decided her medium of menstrual blood was her way of showing solidarity with all women’s movements around the world. Not to be left behind, in the world of NFTS, OneDropNFTS comprises of 67 menstruation themed NFTS from 52 different artists. In the Korean drama series, The Queenmaker, one of the characters holds up the insole of a shoe which she says women use, when faced with the desperation of period poverty. Both male and female authors from Miranda July to Milan Kundera, Nurudeen Farrah to Shashi Deshpande, have portrayed menstruation in their fiction- and illustrated it in terms which are either obsessive and objectifying women’s bodies or compassionate and culturally sensitive. Documentaries have played their part in helping to change the conversation- including Period. End of Sentence, and the 2018 Indian film, Pad Man, which was applauded for raising awareness and breaking the stigma in some countries and banned in others. In advertising, we have seen a shift from the days of the unrealistic blue ink being used on a pad to show its absorbency, but showing blood is still going too far, and early last year the WUKA period underwear advert on UK television was described as ‘distressing’ and ‘offensive’ and received nearly 300 complaints. WUKA argued their aim was to highlight the need for ‘real’ periods to be seen by men and women to encourage a ‘period positive’ culture. It was cleared by the standards agency, but it is telling that even a modern, western society is not ready to accept periods are normal, and the sight of period blood is offensive, shocking, disgusting and frightening to many.
I became interested in art depicting aspects of the female body experience while working on the compilation of my book Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia, and reflected on how the diversity of menstruation experiences could be conveyed most authentically. The more people I spoke to, the more I realised it was only by putting the story teller at the centre of the narrative. Each contributor should have creative liberty to tell the story in their own way, whether it be through writing or art. The result was an anthology with forty-two perspectives from the region which moved away from the conventional way of speaking about the subject, and highlighted there is no ‘normal’ experience of menstruation. The book, aside from various writing genres, includes visuals of a variety of art mediums. Images of floor to ceiling acrylic paintings from Anish Kapoor give viewers a reason to stop and pause and wonder about the male artist’s gaze on menstruation. Beadwork and embroidery on a tampon provoke reflection on the question, what really is period art? Jharkhand murals, painted on a prominent wall outside the post office, by young people raise awareness for the entire village. Crayon drawings from the first ever menstrual workshop conducted in Balochistan, reveal how young women in a conservative culture express their emotions through art. Rupi Kaur’s iconic Instagram posts resisting social media ‘control of periods’ illustrate how women’s bodies are being policed in every space. A QR code for a dance by a dancer who depicts her menstrual cycle through Indian classical music and dance is also in the book. And Shahzia Sikander’s neo-Mughal miniature reclaims a traditionally male dominated arena, with a faceless figure dressed in white moving through the confines of a domestic space suggesting the constraints and challenges of transition of menarche to menopause. All of these different art forms show how varied period art is and reflect the many ways of interpreting menstruation.
However, what has shocked many readers has been the cover of Period Matters, which is a detail from an art work painted by Lyla FreeChild who harvested her menstrual blood to paint it. She was inspired by a dream where she saw herself in the same pose as the 6th century sculpture of the bleeding goddess, Lajja Gauri. For her, making art with menstrual blood was an act of celebration and a rescuing of periods from the impurity usually associated with the experience.
But not everyone agrees. Debating period art is politically and culturally sensitive, but it can be an entry point into a subject some consider still taboo.
The reactions to the anthology Period Matters have ranged from awe and confusion, to disgust and anger. Some have vowed never to touch the book – art work made of menstrual blood, was a step too far. The ‘ick’ factor around menstrual blood, even for those who consider themselves broad-minded, is generally a given. In most cultures, menstrual blood is stigmatised, and this has been accepted as the norm. Women’s reproductive health is woefully understudied and underfunded. One of the best sources of biological material for studying women’s reproductive health is menstrual blood, but because of its stigma, menstrual blood has rarely been studied in detail. The only way to take away the shame around menstruation and menstrual blood is to make the conversations around it commonplace, in the home, at schools, at workplaces, and one way is through art.
After the publication of Period Matters, I conducted a series of workshops on period art with the aim of encouraging inclusivity and debate around ideas of intersectional menstruation, and to show there is no ‘normal.’
The first one, Why Period Art Matters, was at a university in Lahore, Pakistan. The poster advertising the event showcased the Rah Naqvi’s visuals from Period Matters. They are an Indian artist listed in Forbes 2023 Top 30 Under 30, and their work includes an embroidered tampon, pad and pair of underpants. The artist’s aim was to make ordinary menstrual objects which are usually out of sight and considered dirty, visible and beautiful. When the poster went up on social media, prominent members of the Lahore community took exception, and called for the event to be cancelled, arguing ‘period art was disgusting,’ and normalising the idea of it was corrupting the minds of young people. The university decided, nevertheless, to go ahead with the event, but with security precautions and on the day, forty participants of mixed gender attended the workshop. A day later, I was accused of using period art to promote immorality and western liberal ideas of indecency. I was shocked and terrified by their misogyny, anger and hate.
During another period art workshop, Can Period Art Heal? at a Pittsburgh based university, I discussed with undergraduate public health students if it mattered who made period art? Were there distinctions between the male, female and trans gaze? What our reactions to period art revealed about a culture or society, and why this was significant? The discussion highlighted how a person reacted to period art was intersectional, fundamentally subjective and political.
At a similar workshop in Nairobi, I was asked by a young woman how I had overcome my own shame and hesitation about discussing periods, and even going so far as to talk about period art. I realised as I answered, that standing there, in the grounds of the communal space where I had grown up, I still felt an intense internal resistance and awkwardness. A few feet away, on the wall, was an inscription bearing my late father’s name because he had been so involved in the community. I wondered, would he have been embarrassed by me speaking about period art so freely? A deeply private man, it would have been difficult for him accept, but he would have appreciated the importance and urgency of speaking about menstruation now, at a time when women’s rights are under attack.
Looking at period art, engaging in what it represents is deeply political, because it is embedded in who we are, our identities. Ursula le Guin, (2014), said writing about resistance often began with art. She also added that it was important for readers to have the freedom to interpret because that was, ‘…real art; it makes the work inexhaustible.’
While I was visiting the Kalash Valley in Chitral, in the Hindu Kush ranges of Pakistan some years ago, I came across a Bashali, or maternity home which is what I discovered where the Kalasha women go to stay during their menstrual cycle. Inside the Bashali, I met women embroidering and beading headdresses, and one was using an old-fashioned sewing machine to make a traditional flower-patterned cloak in preparation for the Chilam Joshi festival. Away from their domestic responsibilities, all the women were engaged in making some sort of art and they were also all on their period. It was a time of solidarity, friendship and rest. I wondered, was what they were making, period art?
Period art provokes us to reflect on our assumptions and biases about menstruation and the female body. It upsets the status quo. It helps us to understand ourselves and our own feelings about women’s bodies. It encourages us appreciate the diversity of women’s bodies. It supports creativity around periods, whether through art or entrepreneurship. It makes us uncomfortable, prompts our imaginations, and elicits our sympathy. Period art teaches some truths about humanity at a time when women’s bodies and their freedom to make choices are being controlled, monitored and regulated in many places by the state.
Farah Ahamed is the editor of Period Matters: Menstruation Experiences in South Asia, Pan Macmillan India, see: www.periodmattersbook.com. You can find more of her work at www.farahahamed.com.
