FEMINISM
Hands Off Plaster, Modroc, Latex, Insulation Foam and Acrylic
ELIF AKKEMIK
Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn served as a driving inspiration behind this piece as she unpacked the roots of the medical industry in the patriarchal state, and the consequent effects this has on women’s bodies. My sculpture is representative of this pain. With a total of 14 unique male plaster cast hands encroaching on the body cast, it captures the all-encompassing reality that is patriarchy. The history of medicine is as every bit social and cultural as it is scientific, and male dominance is cemented in its foundations. This installation hopes to convey the pain and violation of some women’s experience seeking medical attention, especially within the field of gynaecology. This history goes back farther than we can trace; however, tales of horrific experiments date back to James Marion Sims who experimented on Black enslaved women without anaesthesia. His abuse of enslaved Black bodies as medical test subjects marks the beginning of a devastating recorded history that includes the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and Henrietta Lacks, the
unknowing donor of cells that became the first immortalised human cell line. The subject’s exposed position is one to mimic childbirth, which has the potential to be a violating situation. Covered in layers of red latex and mounted on a mound of expanding foam with hands concealed and reaching for the subject matter, she is objectified and dehumanised. The white, clinical nature of the hands starkly contrasts the tortured body and exemplifies the nature of misogynistic medicine. The process of this sculpture is equally important to consider when articulating the meaning behind it. By overcoming mistakes through rigorous trial and error it led to a particularly apt product. During the process, this sculpture quite literally fell apart and sections disintegrated in my hands. Ultimately, what was once an intact full body cast of a model became a combination of different models’ limbs and torso, a representation of the collective female experience.
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