My project PATAPHYSICAL RESPONSES -Thaumaturgical Feminist showed at the international Gwangju Design Biennale.

The quixotic programme of ‘pataphysical design’ effects deviance, disruption and, ultimately seeks to detour what is deemed the ‘proper’ way to think, imagine and act in design practice; it does so in order to circumvent the blocks (blocs) produced by design orthodoxies, finding ‘alternative’ methods and ‘imaginary solutions’ (of which pataphysics is the science).

From time immemorial magic has been associated with the feminine. In the past this association was used pejoratively – women were tried (by attempts to drown them) for practicing the ‘dark arts’ and if they survived the trial they were burnt at the stake. This ouvroir became a coven of un-drown-able and un-burn-able witches asserting the thaumaturgical (magical) powers of the female body, particularly the power to bring to life. The ouvroir has developed a kit/service to use menstrual blood to ‘fertilise’ soil to grow evening primrose, which can be used to treat period pains. The work confronts socio-cultural taboos around the subject of menstruation, treating it, as it should be, as something profoundly natural.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/39535