Unfired porcelain vulvas depict the female body as fragmented, the performance explores ideas regarding expectations and boundaries. A denial of patriarchal femininity the work is to be crushed and destroyed upon her body. The destruction/disruption/subversion of femininity as prescribed through a patriarchal lens. The work explores dematerialisation­—the destruction and indeterminacy of the objects, the transformation as performative. The performance represents the destruction of the artificial construction of gender within a patriarchal society. The work invites the audience to engage with and reflect upon an evolving disruption. The destructive element of the work relates to the unstable nature of femininity, as performative, rather than given or fixed. The eradication of the vulvas as enacting a transformation. The act of making the vulvas as a reflection of individual acts working to maintain and reproduce systems of oppression. The act of elimination is an investigation into becoming unrestricted by the politics of acts. To investigate the idea of obliteration as a liberating and potentially progressive act and to utilise destruction to interrogate and question social, political and cultural codes. The performer physically interacts with the work to temporarily subvert those gender norms through her actions.

“A Mirror Folded Back On Itself” was performed only once to camera in my studio. There was no audience present; viewing of the performance is available via a video hosting website. Sat upon a rectangular mirror on the floor surrounded by unfired porcelain vulvas, I took each vulva in turn and crushed them against my bare skin. When all vulvas were crushed to porcelain dust, I exited the studio.