I am standing completely dressed in black, holding a white flag with red text that reads “My body is not state property.” I expose my abdomen with the phrase “State Control” written in wet blood dripping on my skin. I stay there for a long time. I then smear the blood with my hands over my abdomen. My blood-covered hands reach for the flag laying on the ground before me. I use the flag to remove the blood off my body. I deposit the flag loaded with blood in the same place where I was standing, leaving the message “My body is not state property” to remain with the people present.

“State Control” is a performance created to expose the biopolitical regimes of regulation of our bodies in which we find ourselves immersed, making visible how our survival is in the hands of the decisions of the states. In recent years, the right to abortion in the US has been weakened with hostile laws in several states, making access to this right difficult or almost impossible in many cases. This performance exhibits the governmental control suffered by those of us who are more fragile and claims with an upright body and a message written in blood, under the silent cry: For the state to remain out of our bodies!