Period Piece has since received an Innovation Award from Kings College University, which is being used to repurpose Period Piece as a participatory workshop and website hosting the conversations from the installation. please go to project website for further information
Period Piece was stimulated by the following thinking:
What does is it mean to digitise our reproductive organs? By modernising the navigation of reproduction, is digital technology democratising and eradicating the taboos around periods and fertility? Is the rise in period and ovulation tracker apps empowering or does it merely replace the authority and surveillance once exercised by the priest, and then the scientist, with tech developers and the commodifying digital market?
Typographic Film: Period Piece from Stephanie on Vimeo.
We recorded four women's menstrual cycles for one month, using self-surveillance tools for mapping behaviours. Ion then translated the data into four compositions representing the women's cycles. We then commissioned poet Audrey Arden-Jones to write lyrics based from literature material on women's fertility from the Catholic church & medical pamphlets.
The resulting work was represented as four holograms synchronised to each women's voice accompanied with a typographic film. In the duration of the Installation, Alana and I curated a series of panel discussions based upon stimulated from Dr Harris’ research behind her recent book exploring the shifts in contraceptive technology.
Animation Trailer: Period Piece from Stephanie on Vimeo.
Press Links
The Guardian
The Guardian
The Observer
The telegraph
Its Nice That
Kings College University
Women In the Arts
Thanks to
Choral Group: Exuadi
Sound Engineer: Adaq Khan
Animation: Nestor Pestana
Poet: Audrey Arden-Jones
Installation Production: Tim Sargent
Director of Photography: Ben Peppiatt
Photographs: Richard Eaton
Funding: Kings College University, Collaborate & Engage
Venue: Science Gallery London