Abstract
This chapter examines the use of blood and menstruation in performance art as a means of reclaiming bodily autonomy, challenging gendered trauma, and mobilizing protest. Through the works of Poppy Jackson, Marisa Carnesky, Effy Beth, and Zanele Muholi, Mock explores how artists employ blood—both literal and symbolic—as a medium for ritual healing, resistance, and redefinition of gendered subjectivity. Drawing on phenomenology, feminist theory, and Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, the chapter situates menstrual art within a broader lineage of feminist and queer performance practices.
Poppy Jackson’s Television Lounge (2014) positions menstrual blood as both a mark of defiance and an agent of disruption within institutional spaces, challenging the invisibility imposed by menstronormative stigma. Marisa Carnesky’s Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman (2015–2018) blends menstrual activism and ritualistic performance to reclaim menstruation as a site of power rather than taboo, incorporating cabaret and magic-show aesthetics. Effy Beth’s Nunca Serás Mujer (2011) directly confronts trans+ exclusionary narratives by incorporating self-extracted blood in a series of urban and private performances that challenge essentialist notions of gendered embodiment. Meanwhile, Zanele Muholi’s Isilumo Syaluma (2006–2011) transforms menstrual blood into a medium for collective mourning and resistance, responding to gendered and racialized violence against queer Black bodies in South Africa.
Mock argues that these performances engage in "blood’s work"—a term that encapsulates the labour of bleeding bodies as sites of political action, artistic intervention, and intersubjective community-making. The chapter situates these performances within a lineage of feminist and queer resistance, foregrounding how blood disrupts hegemonic gender norms, reclaims bodily autonomy, and generates new possibilities for embodiment and agency beyond the constraints of biological essentialism.
Poppy Jackson’s Television Lounge (2014) positions menstrual blood as both a mark of defiance and an agent of disruption within institutional spaces, challenging the invisibility imposed by menstronormative stigma. Marisa Carnesky’s Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman (2015–2018) blends menstrual activism and ritualistic performance to reclaim menstruation as a site of power rather than taboo, incorporating cabaret and magic-show aesthetics. Effy Beth’s Nunca Serás Mujer (2011) directly confronts trans+ exclusionary narratives by incorporating self-extracted blood in a series of urban and private performances that challenge essentialist notions of gendered embodiment. Meanwhile, Zanele Muholi’s Isilumo Syaluma (2006–2011) transforms menstrual blood into a medium for collective mourning and resistance, responding to gendered and racialized violence against queer Black bodies in South Africa.
Mock argues that these performances engage in "blood’s work"—a term that encapsulates the labour of bleeding bodies as sites of political action, artistic intervention, and intersubjective community-making. The chapter situates these performances within a lineage of feminist and queer resistance, foregrounding how blood disrupts hegemonic gender norms, reclaims bodily autonomy, and generates new possibilities for embodiment and agency beyond the constraints of biological essentialism.
| Original language | English |
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| Publisher | Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Feb 2025 |