TISSUES FROM THE UTERUS
by Ana Laura Cantera
Ana Laura Cantera
Biolectronic artist, researcher and professor. She is currently a phD candidate in Arts and Technoesthetics She has a Master degree in Electronic Arts at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero UNTREF, a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts at Universidad de las Artes (UNA) and a degree as Art Teacher at UNA. In her artistic productions she works with the concepts of natures, territories and horizontal entanglements with non-human organisms from decolonial perspectives.
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Pieces made of menstrual blood and algae crochet.
I knit and unknit my body. I use my menstrual blood to disassemble and unhide myself in the act of being a woman, with everything it involves. In the action of weaving, I resignify my history and I knit it. I befriend with my fluids and weave intergenerational stories . I weave my clots, my memories and disarm cycles. I untie, knot, disassemble and tie again. This takes the artistic possibility to rethink some paradigms between private and public, personal and political, interior and exterior.
Menstrual blood is my matter and my identity. It's the material pushed out by my body, and the non-human reproduction. It is waste and rest, mixture and conjunction. Its use implies to perpetuate my biological memory and to change its state to objectify.
The knitted object is a container which houses emptiness. It is a symbolic organ: stretchable, flexible, soft, fragile but strong. It is a clot, an uterus, and endometrial tissue. It's me, being matter.