BAD BLOOD

CASEY JENKINS

HOW DO OUR CASUAL COMMENTS FEED INTO STEREOTYPES?

Bad Blood began with Jenkins’ 28 day performance Casting off my Womb (2013), when the artist knitted with yarn inserted daily in their vagina tracing one full menstrual cycle. Reports of the work led to millions of web views and caused furore on social media, reflecting the taboo nature of the subject.

The performance remnant, recording the cycle, sits alongside a word cloud, part-knitted with menstrual blood dyed yarn, depicting the most common words directed at the original piece from 10,000+ social media comments.

Bad Blood has been developed in collaboration with Susan Bewley, Professor of Complex Obstetrics at Kings College London. She qualified as a doctor in 1982 and worked as an obstetrician for almost 30 years. She has a degree in medical law and ethics and was the first woman trained in Maternal-Fetal Medicine in the UK. Her main research areas are severe maternal diseases and and violence in pregnancy.