Umbilical Web (video still).
Video installation on CRT television, captioned storytelling. 2025.
Glasgow School of Art Degree Show.
My previous playing with the bodily stitch stemmed from the relationship between pain and the feminine body, so I chose the hand and the naval as the subjects.
Naval Stitch ii (Umbilical Web), 2025
The body stitch series, although seemingly gruesome, plays with the deeply intrinsic relationship that the feminine body has with pain; emotional, physical, internal, external. Personally, throughout this year my body has undergone extreme pain, physically and subsequently mentally. Through the termination of my pregnancy, for personal and health related reasons (for myself and for the foetus), I undertook processes of pain which my body had not felt before. Through the acts of nurses prodding and poking, through the termination process (which lasted for days) and the tumultuous mental and physical pain that this caused, I felt both intensely connected and disconnected from my body.
This prodding of my body in an extremely sensitive area, and in an extremely sensitive situation, made me think of the body stitch, the piercing of skin, the pain, the discomfort, the connection//disconnection with mind and body, the feminine body.
Everything about this situation was heartbreaking, as a huge part of me did not want to undergo this process, however I knew that it was the right choice (a choice in which I am incredibly privileged and grateful to be able to make, as some feminine figures in my position have had their bodily autonomy ripped away from them).
This relationship with pain and the feminine feels deeply important within my practice and within the works in which I have made for the degree show, as well as my written work within my dissertation, based on the concepts of feminine decay and cocooning. The captions within the video are snippets of my dissertation, personal experiences and etymological journeys.
My choice of the navel to stitch stems from the fact that it is the remnants of the umbilical cord, the first cocoon in which we were once home within, and for some feminine beings, further create a home and a human within.