Diverted blood, diverted creation

After nine years of post-menopause caused by cancer treatment, last October I was given a few months in which I would have had my last menstruations before beginning HRT.

I decided I would collect one of these last bleedings to water a plant and then document it going through the process of life-death-life as a metaphor for the rite of passage of menopause.

This project happened to begin just around the deepest stage of this transformative time of my life, therefore I decided that I could have it work as a tool for me to navigate its stages and consequences on my body and mental health. This choice revealed itself to be much more insightful than I expected, becoming not only a sort of self-made art therapy in this emotional transition but a source of clarity around the twin concepts of creation of life and artistic creation, as well as the ideas of passage, growth and surrendering.

Mistakes and strokes of luck intuitively guided the outcome around the symbolism of the fig tree and by means of the red-scale technique on an analogue large format camera to represent the period blood I was watering my baby plant with. This is a part of women’s nature that is still overlooked and often seen with a negative attitude as much as menopause in a production-driven patriarchal culture characterized by the denial of cyclical life and a negative attitude about ageing.