RAQUEL MENDES
OF MULBERRY BLOOD AND FOAM, 2024
Performance and Installation
Presented at the Graduate Gallery at OCAD University
MFA thesis exhibition
This installation was envisioned as a ritual space in which a performance was enacted daily by the artist. The performance is a ceremony of connection between humanity and the sacred entity of nature through a cyclical process of soiling and cleansing. It alludes to the conception of life and death as a continuum by referencing menstruation and its symbolic meanings. The mulberry plant which inspired this work is present in the form of planted seedlings, mulberry ink, firewood, ash, homemade soap, and poetry. The background choral music is sung by the artist and the women in her immediate family, binding the ritual to family histories of patriarchal oppression and the cultural legacy of lavadeiras in Brazil.
🔗MFA thesis document (OCAD University Open Research Repository)























