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How does a Menopausal body navigate a phallocentric world?
(Menopause is the penultimate death in the many deaths of the female body)
by
Heidi Holmes
BFA Hons (Painting), VCA, University of Melbourne, 2013

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A THESIS SUPPORT PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS
EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN 2022

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© Heidi Holmes, 2022

Acknowledgements
Thank you Alla Gadassik.
Thank you to my MFA cohort, to Tim Holmes and to my family and friends.
Thank you Justin Langlois, Birthe Piontek, Henry Tsang, Christine Howard Sandoval,
Emily Hermant, Elizabeth McIntosh, Brendan Tang, Lisa Baldissera, Damian Moppett,
Randy Lee Cutler, Ingrid Koenig, Gwenessa Lam, Ruth Beer, Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill,
Susan Gibb, William Newhouse, Yang Hong, Sharon Bayly, Jen Hiebert, Kevin
Romaniuk, Mitch Kenworthy, Maya Thiersch, Hoang Do and Erick Jantzen.

Content Warning: Sexual Harrassment, Body Dismorphia, Surgical Procedures
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1

Table of Contents
Being a Body..................................................................................................................

3

Body of Work..................................................................................................................

8

Body Research..................................................................................................

10

Unbecoming A Body..........................................................................................

12

Dear Jessica Stockholder..................................................................................

15

Containment......................................................................................................

17

Being in a Body in the Body..............................................................................

19

Dear Adrian Piper..............................................................................................

24

Untitled (Clothes Dryer).....................................................................................

27

Clothes Dryer Resource Document...................................................................

27

Dry.....................................................................................................................

31

Host Body - Yard Space Gallery.....................................................................................

35

Modes of Display...............................................................................................

38

Looking Inside and Outside of the Body............................................................

40

Sub-Practice......................................................................................................

42

Professionalising...............................................................................................

44

Where Bodies Meet........................................................................................................

46

Future Body....................................................................................................................

57

Appendices.....................................................................................................................

59

I.

The Materials of Menopause Catalogue...........................................................

60

II.

Example of Correspondence with Decision Makers.........................................

72

III.

Project Safety Planning Forms..........................................................................

86

IV.

Re: Installation Safety Planning........................................................................

88

V.

Material Table for In this body of work, the symptoms of Menopause become
material..............................................................................................................

90

Bibliography....................................................................................................................

94

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Being a Body
As a young girl and later as a young woman, my body was rarely passed by without an
opinion. “Are you a model?” The Aussie favourite, “Show us yer tits!” and the
surprisingly frequent, “You’d be so hot if you wore normal clothes.” This commentary
was the soundtrack to my developing brain. Another comment I heard more than once
was, “Let’s rape her.”
I constantly thought about and acted on making my body less attractive to avoid these
observations. In my twenties, I was in constant flux between making my body more
attractive and less attractive, depending on my state of mind and my environmental
conditions. This often would include maladaptive behaviours like taking diet pills,
extreme fasting and dieting, bingeing, and alcohol or drug use. I would also make
particular choices according to my environment, like not dressing for rape, not walking
alone at night, and being careful with talking and working and being in a body.
This same body passed time by marking a 28 day Period ‘P’ on the kitchen calendar,
representing the secret, bloody leakage of a menstrator in the family home. This fertile
evidence, neatly summed up in biro, was otherwise covertly leaked onto bedroom
sheets, bath towels, toilet seats, tile floors, shagged carpet and onto bamboo printed
couch cushions.
The Pill 1 entered my cycle both as a protector against the possibility of teen pregnancy
and as a management tool for the painful effects of Endometriosis2 —which was
insidiously developing throughout my reproductive organs, muting the egg-shedding
intended to be performed by my ovaries, eviscerating my fallopian tubes and cloaking
my kidneys, my liver, my bowel in a sheath of sinewy, scar tissue. The Pill masked this
cycle, by pausing time, perhaps pausing a clear diagnosis and providing a blood-free,
clean vaginal cavity, fit for activities including sexual exploration and the rigors of
teenage life; sleepovers and netball. For this body, the true impacts of Endometriosis
were only revealed after entering into a romantic relationship that summoned the desire
for a family, including a birthed child. An exploration of my reproductive organs revealed
the cumulative residue and promised future of the disease. This diagnosis resulted in a
series of invasive surgeries, which were invited and required, though traumatic. They
were followed by ten rounds of hormone stimulating treatments and In Vitro Fertilisation
(IVF) – all ultimately unsuccessful, financially crippling and emotionally devastating.

1

The Pill is an orally distributed hormone tablet containing oestrogen and progestogen, taken for the
purposes of birth control and menstruation management. Its side effects include heart attack and stroke.
2
A certain diagnosis of Endometriosis can only be determined through an invasive surgery and is
discouraged by medical professionals due its long recovery times.

3

The blood-dry, family-dry reproductive organs in this body now only produce Bacterial
Vaginosis. The malodorous-sour-broccoli seepage, soaking panty liners and knickers,
dampening expensive latex mattresses, plush dining chairs, pastel couch cushions and
exhausting a waft of rot in the atmosphere. I am no longer a secretly-secreting object, I
am now the abject—still secretly-secreting, but biding time before my ultimate demise.
In her book, Monster Beauty: Building the Body of Love, Joanna Frueh scrutinises the
ways in which culture understands female bodies and the structures that hold this kind
of knowledge and judgement in place. Of Menopause, Frueh says, “The
postreproductive body is unfuckable—erotically taboo—because it is not a potential site
of male fertility/creativity: it is a tomb.”3 In my experience of Perimenopause, and with
the underwriting of being in a cisgendered female body, this statement rings true.4
This body, now shaped by the conditions of Menopause, is also the body of an artist
that finds support in the traditions of feminist art practices that draw from embodied
experiences.5 Chilean poet, artist, filmmaker and activist Cecilia Vicuña’s work often
examines motifs of blood and menstruation. Her painting Angel de la menstruación,
which Vicuña describes as “a portrait of the blood coming out of the vagina as beautiful
clots,” is accompanied by a poem ending with the line, “...because I use my blood for
looking.” My blood (and my lack of blood) is also used for looking and is the lens
through which this practice is developed.6
With my blood-lens in place, the development of this current body of work began with
the question of what an art practice centered around Menopause might look like, and
how the materials of Menopause might be sourced. Much of the research has focused
on developing a catalogue of material resources for installations—this is available to
view in Appendix I of this document, titled The Materials of Menopause Catalogue. This
catalogue has evolved into a collection of medicinal and cosmeceutical substances,
architectural and domestic re-imaginings, found and sourced objects and embodied
sensory gestures; scent, heat, wetness, dryness and leaks and discharges. Figurative
and documentative strategies of the body are not present in these installations; there
are no images of bared breasts, reproductive motifs or blood stains. Rather, this
practice reworks atmospheres, materials, and metaphors to reproduce a spatial
impression of a body.
The relationship between the processing of a lived experience and an art practice of
collecting representative materials has developed over several years of installation
3

(Frueh 2001, P61)
Although my body is a cisgendered female body, as this body transitions from reproductive
fertility—considered integral to Western constructions of sexed femaleness—I find myself contesting
binary models of gendering. This is an area for future research.
5
The use of the word, ‘Menopause’ in this text, also refers to ‘Perimenopause’.
6
(Ades, 2013 - Cecilia Vicuña, Angel de la Menstruación, 1973, Oil on canvas, 48.2cm x 57.1cm.)
4

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practice, beginning with the 2015 work I am woman, hear me roar as I push out this
Science Baby. This work was conceived of and exhibited under the conditions of fertility
treatment, documenting the lived experience of fear, pain, yearning and abjection
through materials and atmosphere (the hormone additive in the water filled the space
with a metallic scent). Although a literal body was not present in this work, an
impression of a body was present—the audience reported experiencing the weight of
my fear and an enhanced understanding and relationship to fertility and to their own
bodies. For my practice, this work emphasised the potential bodily effect of arranged
and manipulated materials, leading to a series of exhibtions exploring fertility through
the materials of these processes and ultimately directing me to this MFA program and to
an exploration of Menopause and its materials.

Images: Heidi Holmes, I am woman hear me roar as I push out this Science Baby, 2015, Dimensions
Variable, Transvaginal ultrasound machine, Menopur (ovary stimulating hormone), water, pond plants,
water pump, interior hosing, bone coloured acrylic paint, flesh coloured acrylic paint, perspex, fibreglass
pond liner, glass beads, felt, cotton thread, transvaginal ultrasound probe, Tim’s words hung at artist’s oral
height. Documentation by Christo Crocker.

The trajectory of the research I intended to undertake at Emily Carr University of Art +
Design (referred to as ‘Institution’ in this document) shifted as my research developed.
As The Materials of Menopause Catalogue began to take shape and the testing and
analysis of materials occured, I encountered Institutional resistance to the qualities of
the Menopause-reflecting materials. This is perhaps to be expected in any installation
practice—architectural gestures and auditory and olfactory materials often seep from
one area to another and can require containment. However, the experience of
‘containment’ in this Institution has resulted in extensive and ongoing communications
between the heads of departments, technicians, building managers and gallery
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managers, effectively underwriting the development of this work. In these reams of
negotiatory correspondence there’s confusion, handoffs, shirking, petulance, ignorance,
gaslighting, stand offs and gatekeeping—perhaps professional actions in an Institution
founded in a phallocentric world?
What is it I mean to say by using the term ‘phallocentric world’? The phallocentric world
where this particular body and Institution operate is colony founded and structured as a
patriarchal system, where, in the words of feminist psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, “the
normal body is not a bleeding body. (Where) encounters with bodily fluids provoke
adverse responses such as nausea, disgust, and horror.”7 For Kristeva, Western cultural
valuation of disembodiment (minds unencumbered by bodies) and sterility (bodies
without physical remnants or leakage) is inseparable from a deep-seated rejection of
the reproductive womb specifically, and female sexed embodiment more broadly. The
ensuing containment of embodied femininity supports a structure that believes women
and the symbolic feminine “are not men, cannot be men, and as so cannot exist in the
world as men do.”8 Through symbolic extension, a similar dynamic plays out in
institutional spaces where the “body” of the Institution – its walls, its windows, its floors,
and its electrical wirings – are managed according to values of architectural, sensory,
and psychological sterility. Institutional containment of Menopausal materials,
particularly materials that ‘smell,’ ‘leak,’ or otherwise disturb clear borders, becomes
warranted and necessary in order to uphold the phallocentric order.
In this research, the phallocentric oppressions manifested through various forms and
included matters related to accumulated capital (the anxiety of financial loss, via the
voiding of a warranty), through politics and power dynamics (no man is in charge and
every man is in charge—rendering responsibility both impenetrable and negligible),
through the self-policing of ethics and morals (when I proposed using broccoli scent, I
was asked, “Are you a good person or a bad person?”) and through administrative
ideals of what an art practice should look like (to appear professional, the Institution
must contain what is deemed messy—like the symptoms of Menopause).
As a means to continue my research, I’ve reclaimed the Institutional containment of
these materials and the ensuing administrative behaviours as symptoms of Menopause
and added them to the The Materials of Menopause Catalogue. I’ve also referenced the
containment of materials and Institutional bureaucracy in installation outcomes, in
tables, catalogues, social media posts, emails, and letters. Moreover, I have responded
through the founding and administration of an alternative gallery space, its mandate,
programming and curation. And whilst this research has located some productive
upside to this professional grade of undermining, the personal toll for me has been
7
8

(Kristeva 1982, P3)
(MacDonald 2007, P348)

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difficult to navigate. I can’t help but feel that when a material representing Menopause is
deemed inapproriate, my body is also deemed inappropriate.

Image: Extract of communications between the ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management,
Facilities’, ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and myself9

As you’ve read in the introductory paragraphs of this text, this is not a new experience.
My body, my behaviours, my personality and now my art practice have been adjusting
to accommodate these societal norms my entire life. This brings me back to the intent of
this research—how does a Menopausal body navigate a phallocentric world? The
research conducted throughout this MFA can only answer this question in part, as it is a
life-long inquiry to critique, challenge and unravel the complexities of systemic
phallocentrism. However, I began these Critical Menopause Studies, by researching,
analysing and administiring the materials of Menopause, then negotiating Institutional
permission to arrange these materials as sensory installations, ensuring that
Menopause exists here.10
9

An extended example of these communications can be seen in Appendix II of this document.
The term, ‘Critical Menopause Studies’ is inspired by the term, ‘Critical Menstruation Studies’ coined by
Sharra Vostral and first put to use in The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies.
10

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Body of Work
In this body of work, the symptoms of Menopause become materials.
Through the form of installation, these ‘symptom-materials’ serve as discrete elements
to construct the concept of an edgeless body. Whilst, “...the classical, high-art tradition
of the female (body) plays on the ideal of wholeness and contained form,” this
re-produced body is alternatively fragmented, leaky and boundless11. It exists beyond
the perimeters of skin, seeping into the walls, the floors and the atmosphere. When this
body breathes, the space around it expands and contracts. When this body moves, oils
and skin dust are pressed and deposited onto surfaces, accumulating, growing, thriving
along with hair-spurts and olfactory and aural presences that draw the bodily elements
together. In her book, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality, Lynda Nead
unravels the depiction of the female body portrayed in traditional forms of art explaining
that “...the female body has been regarded as unformed, undifferentiated matter (and)
the procedures and conventions of high-art are one way of controlling this unruly body
and placing it within the boundaries of aesthetic discourse.” This high-art tradition of
containment reflects my experience of working within this Institution, with the
symptom-materials in my installations often referred to as unconventional, unusual and
risky. However, it is generally not unconventional, unusual and risky to mensturate,
reproduce, or to be in a Menopausal body, it is simply a fact for more than 50% of
human population.
From menarche through to Menopause, the female reproductive body undertakes an
ongoing routine of management and negotiation of symptoms and supressions. At the
beginning of Menstruation, the female reproductive system has approximately seven
million eggs available—when the distribution of eggs begins to decline, oestrogen levels
drop and Perimenopause begins12. The symptoms of Perimenopause are vast and vary
from body to body including: extreme bleeding and clotting, irregular cycles, hot flushes,
insomnia, migraines, increased risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular issues, vaginal
dryness, unbalanced pH levels, unusual hair loss and hair growth and emotional
instability and infertility. Perimenopause generally extends from four to ten years with
Menopause beginning when amenorrhea has occurred for twelve months. These
symptoms can be lessened with hormone therapy, effectively extending menstruation
and ensuring the body remain artificially youthful, manageable and fecund (still
secretly-secreting).
11

(Nead 1992, P33)
The use of the term ‘female reproductive body’ is not intended to exclude the experiences of all bodies.
I would like to acknowledge here that Perimenopause and Menopause can occur as a result of the
withdrawal of hormones in bodies that do not hold female reproductive organs. The symptoms of these
experiences are comparable.
12

8

It is the ongoing clandestine management of the female body that ensures it remain an
ideal subject for sexual objectification, rather than a subject of abjection. To confirm this
acceptability, the female body must regulate the obscene and remain “…sanitised,
hygienic and deodorised, devoid of any ‘creaturely’ or animal-like features such as body
hair, genitals, or evidence of body products such as mucus or blood.”13 For Menopausal
bodies, this baseline of body management is also paired with the overwhelmingly
symptomatic presence of the condition, and accompanied by the aging process which
summons wrinkles, graying hair, wasting muscle and sagging skin. Once “…seen as
men’s flabby sister, thanks to the erroneous notion that the “natural” male body is
hard…”14, the Menopausal body is seen as a depleated and mishapen hag—a body
only waiting for its ultimate demise.

Image: Detail from Menopause Support
Group - Facebook (Meta).

It is in this waiting-room that the Menopausal body is absolutely confirmed as abject.
Like the objectified body, it can likely continue to contain its secret-secretions after
decades of practice, however it can no longer contain its obvious state of infertility in the
palpable symptoms of Menopause and aging—and as a result, the Menopausal body is
determined as ‘other’ and considered an unproductive vessel for societal interests.
The upholding of this abject determination is manifested through the derision and hatred
of Menopausal bodies often seen in entertainment, where Menopausal bodies are
referenced by their symptoms like, “…stinky old pussy…” or “…dry old pussy…” or
described as behaving hysterically with hot flushes portrayed as ‘hilarious’ clown-like
physical comedy15. Through this research, I hope to evolve this understanding the
13

(Nead 1992, P53)
(Frueh 2001, P62)
15
(Chapelle, Bognar and Reichert 2020)
14

9

Menopausal body and I’ve begun by demonstrating the embodied experience of
Menopause with an intent to evoke empathy and awareness of its conditions.
Body Research
For this practice, research always begins in the shower. As I am alone with this body,
cleansing, inspecting and addressing every moment of it, I set the tone for the day
ahead. Here ideas for artworks, concepts and methods become clear. I may have been
circling around an idea or researching and gathering information, however it is here that
the steam of an idea rises up. Post shower, I’ll write shorthand notes for myself on my
phone. Later in the studio these notes become check-items on a poster-sized TO DO
list with a series of tests and questions.

Image: A To Do list from Unbecoming a Body, 2021

The strategy of organising potential materials through measurement, cataloguing and
lists (and the crossing-off of completed tasks) is a naturally occurring inclination. My
brain enjoys ordering thoughts and tasks in this way, also ‘reading’ the materials of
other artists’ artworks in a similar way. In my assessment of material, this personal logic
aids in rigorously assessing the effectiveness of materials according to predetermined
catalogue subject headings, also allowing me to compare the materials to one and
other.
In order for material to be added to The Materials of Menopause Catalogue, it must first
pass a series of interrogations. To do this I assess what the material represents;
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symbolically, metaphorically, formally and literally. I research the perceptions of the
material, what is known about it, if other artists use this material and how. I consider if
an oppositional material might act as a proxy, e.g. Can wetness also represent dryness?
I then conduct studio experiments, testing the material, its limits and question how it
might be innovated. I research these materials to see if they might possess double
meanings - like the clothes dryer representing both domesticity and dryness (and many
other things). Finally, I meet with the MFA studio faculty, my supervisor or my cohort to
discuss ideas and test the readability of the material.
Although this form of logic has always been present in my life in one form or another, in
this particular Institutional situation the systematising of data has aided in reclaiming
what has felt out of my control—also put to use when reasoning for particular
Institutional decisions has been difficult to understand. For example, processing
‘gate-keeping’ as a symptom through this system, provides a controlled environment
with pre-determined parameters to tease it out and develop it as a material (perhaps
translating it to a gesture of peeling layers of paint and plaster), also accumulating the
symptom-material in the process. This is also true of the embodied symptoms of
Menopause, which at times have felt insurmountable—in this system of ordering, the
unruly symptoms of Menopause are contained and transformed into valuable materials.
In addition to accumulating these materials in The Materials of Menopause Catalogue I
also construct smaller indexes, specific to each produced work, the Clothes Dryer
Resource Document is one such table discussed in more detail later in this text. When
the installation of an artwork begins, all of the materials from these indexes are brought
into the space. It would not be unusual for each project to begin with fifty pieces of
material for testing and research in the gallery and then to reduce this material list by
half. In order to test materials on site, I compare, contrast, consider the conceptual
intent of the work, my aesthetic preferences, the spatial considerations and the
architecture. Through this on-site decision making, materials emerge as important or
essential or they migrate back to the studio.
Throughout this research, I’ve produced several artworks focused on the various
conditions of Menopause. These works have included an exploration of Premarin - the
most widely used oestrogen hormone, produced through the drying of pregnant horse
urine; a reimagining of the architectural space of a bathroom (perhaps the space where
we are most honest with our bodies) and a structural building frame of a washroom,
soaked with goat milk soap and surrounded by hair sprouting walls. These works and
those that have come before them have led to the works I’ll be discussing in this
document.

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Unbecoming A Body
Unbecoming A Body began with the question of how an edgeless body might find its
unbound form within an installation practice. Sourcing its materials in the symptoms of
Menopause and demonstrating its state, Unbecoming A Body is framed by a lurid pink
light by daylight and an ominous red glow as the day darkens.

An aroma assaults the nasal
passage immediately on entry
to the space, its location
evasive and invasive. The
visitor encounters a collection of
industrial and domestic cooking
pots holding boiling water and
steaming at a
floor-level-hot-flush. This
collection is accompanied by
oversized, lard-like bars of white
soap, expansively long strands
of hair extending from the
ceiling and into the boiling pots
of water and a series of
puddles, hemmed in by clear,
gloopy, viscous rims. Also
permeating the air is the drone
of an endlessly-looping
extraction fan and the constant
dripping of water, with no
indication of its source or
destination16.

Images: Heidi Holmes, Unbecoming A Body, 2021, Water, heat, broccoli, lemon, white vinegar, adzuki
beans, stainless steel pots, water bath, portable induction cooktops, pot grime, goats milk soap, rope,
polished stone, horse hair, adhesive, Vaseline, underwear, latex, St John’s Wort, extraction fan, looping
audio, gel lighting filter.
16

*Spoiler! The scent was hidden in the constantly boiling water bath and the sound of the extraction fan
and dripping water was emitting from beneath an upturned pot.

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The installation of this work took place in a contained classroom space made vacant by
the mandatory stay-at-home orders of the Covid-19 pandemic. The classroom
containment of this work was determined by the Institution, as the proposed installation
was deemed unsafe due to the use of scent, heat and water. Despite the availability of
the classroom, the installation was limited in viewing duration due to a mandatory
three-day maximum term of use. As a result, the work could not be viewed on the day of
the critique and instead was viewed in image-form by the studio faculty and by a few
members of the MFA cohort. This was not an ideal way to present a work that is
sensorial in nature.
The maintenance of this work was taxing, as it required constant supervision and
monitoring of the boiling pots. Whilst waiting for visitors to arrive, I would be alerted by
the need to refill the pots by the stench of singed horse hair or burning broccoli. Similar
to the symptomatic conditions of the Menopausal body, the rolling boil of the pots was
difficult to keep up with.
The intent of Unbecoming A Body was to suggest a Menopausal body through its
symptom-materials without literally indicating elements of the body. I deliberately
avoided reference to feminist art motifs; vaginal flowers, soft skin-like surfaces, stitching
and blood. The symptom-materials of Menopause were the only accountable indicators

13

and like a Menopausal body, the edges of the work remained leaky, with no indication of
where the installation began or ended.
In planning this work I looked to Jessica Stockholder’s practice—similar to my own
practice, Stockholder's work moved from painting to sculpture and then to installation
and finds its current material outcome in a set-building aesthetic. The work I was
particularly interested in was Landscape Linoleum, installed in Belgium in 199817. The
work, visually centred by a web-like steel scaffold, perhaps extending to the height of a
three story building, has a series of true-to-size car shells suspended to it. Surrounding
this central frame are partitioning ropes, several large triangular planes of painted grass
impaled with a satellite dish, a heater, a tractor seat and two full sized fibreglass
swimming pools, upended like the cars but without a scaffold to hold them in place.
There is also an unmarked deep hole, dug from the grass and into the dirt. Also in this
work are several bronze sculptures, standing on plinths or surrounded by them. Some
of these things are difficult to decipher from an image, but I know they’re there from a
description of the work Stockholder gave in an artist talk at The Nasher Centre. In this
talk, Stockholder also says:
I'm interested in the relationship between the body, the scale of being a body
and the work that you're looking at. So if you're looking at a small painting on
the wall (your understanding is) the activity is between your head and the
painting. As things get larger your body becomes part of what's at stake and
(your) relationship to apprehending the work.18
I find this to be true of this work. When I look at an image of Landscape Linoleum the
first thing I do to spatially understand the work is place myself right there at the foot of
the hanging car shells. This is also true of the upended swimming pools, I’m imagining
myself right there, splashing around.
I also really enjoyed Stockholder’s description of the objects and gestures in this
installation finding their resting places—this is something I find really difficult to describe
outside of simply describing it as intuition. She says, “I was thinking about the grass and
the kind of wall of trees as two surfaces that I was working against in much the same
way that I work against a white wall inside a gallery or a museum.” It is such an
interesting strategy to treat a space outside of an institutional place in the same manner
you would from within it. But of course, a park is also an institutional space, definitely
performing as a public space, but manicured and managed by a governing body.

17
18

Jessicca Stockholder, Landscape Linoleum, 1998. Site-specific installation, Middelheim Park, Belgium.
(Stockholder, The Nasher Centre, 2017)

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I was introduced to Stockholders work during my undergraduate degree. Like
Stockholder, my work was beginning to move from the two dimensional plane, into
spatial sculpture and later into installation. Stockholder’s practice had already made this
development and demonstrated how a practice could move from painting into other
outcomes. I have since followed her practice and when I can I love to experience her
work in real life.

Dear Jessica Stockholder,
I am such a fan of your work. When I experience your work directly, I
understand it with my entire body. It envelops me from head to toe. When
looking at a documentary image of your work (as I am right now), this
seems almost impossible; everything is steel and flat-painted surfaces,
wood and ropes and machines - all materially unrelated to a corporeal
form. And yet, somehow your deft treatment of these materials unravels
the edges of my body.
The work of yours that I really want to know with my body is no longer
available to me (or anyone else), it was part of a festival in Belgium in
1998 and titled ‘Landscape Linoleum’. There is only one image I could find
of the work. But, I saw your presentation at the Nasher Sculpture Centre
where you talked the audience through it. Even though I cannot be there
in person, by looking at the image and hearing you talk about it, my body
is awed by the sheer scale and effect of it.
If I may, I’d love to ask you for some advice about installation as a
medium? I’m making installations that think through the materials of
Menopause; olfactory and aural elements, temperature and a collection of
objects. I’m having some trouble right now in finding the location for these
elements to exist together in the Institution in which I am studying. These
materials require particular occupational health and safety attention that,
in my opinion, render them mute. Have you ever had this issue with your
materials? I’m wondering how you meet the already-set criteria of a place
and still achieve your personal preferences in your work? I can’t imagine it
is easy to negotiate moving heavy cars with sharp edges, glass windows
and a fuel tank in and out of ‘white cube’ gallery spaces. I’d love to know
how you did it.

15

As I mentioned, I’m making work that uses the materials of Menopause.
To do this I’m taking the symptoms of Menopause as a starting point and
translating them into materials. I’m wondering if perhaps you also have
some understanding of the Menopause experience and if Menopause is
also present in your work? I have seen you use refrigerators, freezer
chests and garbage cans as materials - these are similar materials to
those I use to describe the symptoms of Menopause (hot flushes, aging,
leakiness). I know that it is not the central conceptual driver of your work,
but for this body, Menopause is certainly present in your work.
There’s something else I’d really like to ask you...do you remember me?
My practice? I applied to your art school’s MFA program and after my
interview, I was rejected. I’ve been wondering what happened. It’s been
four years and I'm still wondering. I did completely fuck up the interview, I
said fuck too much. I was so nervous and spoke very fast. After some
questions about second-wave-feminism (I think they thought I was making
work with raw meat like Carolee) I was then asked whose work I was
looking at. I said:
“I’m not writing my name on the wall of the gallery with period
blood. I love Sophie Calle’s practice, I adore her clean,
office-like aesthetic”.
It’s true, but why didn’t I say your name? Of course that’s what they
wanted me to say. I’m only realising this now as I’m writing you this letter.
How ridiculous!
As well as wondering why you didn’t want me, I also wonder what would
have happened if you did. (I think we would have been great together :)
With much admiration and gratitude,

16

Containment
As the location for this practice is currently located within an Institution, the work must
also consider the values and regulations of this space. Here the Menopausal body must
be contained. Whilst many bodies co-exist and move through these spaces, their traces
must move with them. Installations that think through the complications of bodies must
not be wet or leaky, contain temperature disparities or odours (good or bad) and never
overflowing or fat. Here, seemingly innocuous materials are assessed by invisible,
inaccessible, slippery standards, delivered by faceless email accounts and hearsay.
Within the Institution and in this Menopausal body, I feel abjectified.
My frustrations with the culture of this Institution have remained mostly unspoken
because as long as I’m an MFA candidate, I must also maintain the particular kind of
congeniality that ensures everything remains calm and kind. This is of course a bitter pill
to swallow given that the subject matter of this work responds to the traumas suffered
by Menopausal bodies in the phallocentric frameworks continuing to be upheld by this
community.
In her essay The Obscene Body/Politic, Carolee Schneemann retrospectively recounts
the development of her practice over the expanse of her career and the ways in which
her body (and her work) have been censored, muted, banned and shamed. She also
posits that the source of this censorship can be credited to phallocentric cultural
structures and the ongoing complicitness of humankind in this system. Writing about
herself and other feminist artists working in the 1990s, Schneeman states that “political
and personal violence against women is twined behind this stunting defeminization of
history. For many of us, the layers of implicit and explicit censorship constructing our
social history combine with contemporary contradictions to force our radicalization.”
Schneeman’s text provides an insight into the experience of censorship of the female
body in a visual art context. She says, “one form (of censorship) instigates public
outrage, outcry; the other acts as a slow smothering, a constraint. Censorship is usually
anonymous; you never see its source exactly. Censors are wily and often capricious.”19
Thirty years later, the latter form feels like the kind of censorship I’m experiencing in this
Institution.
Schneemann’s practice has supported my research in light of the similar conditions in
which we’re presenting our practices. Her work, Meat Joy was designed to celebrate
sexuality as a biological need and interrogate the cultural coding that had determined it
as a matter for containment, until the sexual revoloution of the 1960s. In this staged and
re-staged performance; bodies meet each other, wrangle with paint, paper, plastic and
19

(Schneemann 1991, P34)

17

raw meat to a soundtrack of music and ambient street sounds. The choreography and
entanglement of the bodies is sometimes sexual or sensual in nature, sometimes
awkward and absurd—reading as abject. Meat Joy makes sexuality visible, releasing
contained sexual bodies and their pleasures and in effect, Schneemann brings sex to
culture. I appreciate Meat Joy for its groundbreaking cultural work, however I can’t help
but wonder where the bodies like mine are in Meat Joy. I imagine a 2022 version of
Meat Joy staged with diverse Menopausal bodies, differently abled bodies and saggy,
flacid, dropped-bottom bodies. The youthful, firm bodies in Meat Joy (and in
Schneemann’s other works) are intended to broadly represent sexuality, however in
effect the choice of these particular bodies upholds the containment of every other kind
of body outside of the ideal.
This is an important distinction to make between Schneemann’s practice and my own.
Yes, we are feminists, we have experienced containment, we consider the body as
material, we are also interested in examining the abject and where the edges of
abject-determination lie. However, the literal form of a body is absent in my work.
Although I'm conducting this research through a blood-lens, I’m also interested in
keeping the determination of materials open, so that all kinds of bodies might locate
relationships to their bodies in this work. This accesibility is achieved by processing and
extracting installation materials from the symptoms of Menopause.
-

18

Being in a Body in the Body
The negotiations for how Being in a Body of the Body might develop into an approved
installation outcome began months in advance of the SOP exhibition20. This work was to
be a product of Institutionally-deemed ‘suitable materials’ and a negotiated concession
of materials21. This is how it came to be that Being a Body in the Body is a work that as
well as thinking through the embodied experience of Menopause, is also a work about
making the work in the Institution.

Images: Heidi Holmes,
Being a Body in the Body
(Installation images from
SOP), 2021, Peeled paint
and plaster, the height of
the artist’s genitals,
broccoli drawings (pencil,
acrylic, gouache), the
height of the artist,
Vaseline, male electrical
plugs (fucking the
institution), found holes,
horse hair, liquid latex,
adhesive, deconstructed
underwear, St John’s
wort, the amount of fluid
in the artist’s body, water,
pot, pump, latex hose,
clothes dryer (muted),
faux broccoli, faux lemon,
vinegar bottle, goat milk
soap, Vagisil PH Balance
Daily Intimate Wash
branding, cotton towels.

20

SOP is the acronym for the State of Practice exhibition taking place at the halfway point of the MFA
degree at ECUAD.
21
These negotiations are available to read in Appendix II of this document.

19

As the negotiations paused, the act of making a site specific work could begin. Three
weeks before the work was due for its public audience, all of the possible materials
were moved from the studio to the exhibition space. A public barrier of caution tape was
installed and a rolling TO DO list was taped to the wall. The materials were moved
around, stacked, tested and scrutinised against the intended conceptual premise of the
work. Materials that I was certain about, became superseded by new discoveries on-site
and eventually in-question materials began to migrate back to the studio. On
determining the essential materials, considering the architecture and meeting the
Institutional measures, the materials began to locate their set-places and eventually the
work felt balanced and the concept
communicated clearly.
It is only on closer inspection and
perhaps with the assistance of the list of
materials that the details of Being a
Body in the Body become visible. The
clothes dryer is lifeless and unplugged,
its cord looping back into itself via the
rear vent of the machine and is
unbalanced by a head of faux broccoli
covered with soap. The door of the
clothes dryer is ajar and in its interior, a
faux lemon is visible. Atop the dryer is a
crumpled stack of bath towels, printed
with the branding of Vagisil PH
Balancing Wash—appearing to be new
and unused. The dryer sits on a
polished concrete floor at the apex of
two walls—one is a wall of windows and
the other, a plaster wall extending up to
a very high ceiling.
The windows have been finger-smeared with Vaseline as high as I could reach, creating
a textured effect that un-focuses the external view from the second floor of the
Institution. On the long plaster wall, at the height of the artist’s genitals, is an area
marked by three small squares of removed paint and plaster, revealing the interior
plaster joins and the surface of the building materials of the Institution. These three
removed squares are re-hung at a confusingly, out of reach location, revealing the inner
structure of the Institution. Three rotten broccoli drawings (replacing the scent of
broccoli that I was prevented from exhibiting) are attached to this wall and although their
dimensions suggest that they might be neatly framed by the cut sections of the wall, the
20

drawings instead appear adjacent to them or shrunk within them. To view the detailed
drawings, bending is necessary and when you bend, you may encounter a horse hair or
two. The single white horse hairs protrude from the wall in small patches of beige latex
from the many found-holes. There is also a pair of deconstructed, St John’s wort dyed
underwear, stuffed into an existing hole in the wall; an industrial stock pot filled with 39
litres of room temperature water—the same amount of fluid in my body, topped with a
dead fly on its surface. Completing the work are three small electrical sockets where an
electrical cord with two male plugs discreetly connects the dual outlets, cycling the
active current from receiver to receiver and suggesting a dangerous circuit of the
institution plugging itself (or in Australian dialect, suggesting that the Institution, “go fuck
itself”).

Like Unbecoming A Body, the intent of this work was to represent the conditions of a
Menopausal body through the symptom-materials that had been collated in The
Materials of Menopause Catalogue. As the first public presentation of my research in
Vancouver, it felt important to represent what I had been working on in the best possible
light. However, since SOP was taking place in a public exhibition space, the Institution
ruled that the clothes dryer could not perform its intended function of drying two
broccoli-soaked washcloths. And further, the scent of broccoli could not be exhibited in
this space in any capacity due to its potential to offend, cause confusion or potentially
overwhelm.

21

In using the exhaust of the clothes dryer to distribute the broccoli scent, I’d hoped to
replicate the olfactory state of Bacterial Vaginosis (BV), a condition often experienced
by Menopausal bodies related to the pH levels of the vagina—my research has found
the scent profile of BV can be likenened to cooked broccoli, vinegar and lemon. In his
book, The Smell of Risk, Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics, Hsuan L.
Hsu’s examines the use olfactory elements in public gallery spaces, positing that ‘air’ is
a political material, seemingly available to all, yet exclusive to some22. Through this
observation and through the regulation and containment of broccoli scent, I’m left to
determine that the Institution excludes the ‘abject’ Menopausal body affected by
Bacterial Vaginosis (unless of course the body can secretly-secrete). Further
complicating the politics of air, are the regulations brought about under the Covid-19
pandemic. Society has never been more aware of its ability to pollute communal air
supplies and to protect itself from exhausted air. However, our edgeless bodies remain
impossible to contain as Diane Ackerman explains in her book, A Natural History of the
Senses “…a breath is not neutral or bland - it’s cooked air; we live in a constant
simmering. There is a furnace in our cells…we pass the world through our bodies, brew
it lightly, then turn it loose again, gently altered for having known us”23. We may be
regulatorily masked and secretly-secreting, however our bodies will inevitably continue
to leave their traces.
Adrian Piper’s practice emerged for me as I was researching artists that use food, scent
and the body in their work. “Adrian Margaret Smith Piper (born September 20, 1948) is
a first-generation Conceptual artist and analytic philosopher who was born in New York
City. Since 2005 she has lived and worked in Berlin, where she runs the Adrian Piper
Research Archive (APRA) Foundation Berlin” 24.
It was my ‘food and scent and body’ search that led me to Piper’s, Catalysis (1970-3)
and its series of public actions. In these works, Piper uses her body as a site to test the
public response to sharing a space with her body. The actions of Catalysis included
attaching balloons to her ears, nose and teeth, painting her clothes and wearing a ‘Wet
Paint’ sign, wearing an hidden speaker that played belches, stuffing a large red towel in
her mouth, bulging her cheeks to twice their size and donning clothes on the train that
had been saturated in vinegar, eggs, milk and cod liver oil. In these works, whilst being
a body, doing bodily things, Piper activates herself as a sculptural object, a material and
22

(Hsu 2020, P152)
(Ackerman 1991, P6)
24
This introduction is taken directly from Piper’s reconstructed Wikipedia page. She copied the public
listing and corrected its errors after her requests for editing went unanswered. This listing is now
displayed on the APRA website, making Piper the administrator of her own encyclopaedic history.
23

22

a site. As the title of this series of work indicates, Piper is a catalytic agent causing
impact and adjustment for her audience. In this role, she challenges the social and
spatial visibility and invisibility of her blackness, whiteness and otherness. The strategy
dictates that the audience cannot avoid an interaction with Piper's body, it can also not
optically indulge in the interaction as the affect is objectively abject and in turn, Piper
simultaneously invites and refuses her audience.
Piper’s use of her body as a material and a site is inspirational—in no way does my life
experience or my art practice share the very layered and complex experience of being a
woman in a mixed-race, black body. However, my body, my practice and my current
research find a relationship with Catalysis through its materials—the body (as a
material), embodiment (doing/feeling life), abjection and societal and cultural
parameters (phallocentrism) and the resulting containment (of otherness).
As a result of the Catalysis works Piper elaborates further on the ensuing development
of her practice:
There is very little that separates what I'm doing from quirky personal
activity...since I've stopped using gallery space, and stopped announcing
the pieces, I've stopped using art frameworks and instead moved to the
same time and space continuum as the viewer. Galleries (and) museums
are becoming increasingly unworkable for me; they are being
overwhelmed and infiltrated by bits and pieces of other disintegrating
structures: political, social, psychological, economic.
The experience of these structures is also later reflected in Piper’s practice when
her employment is terminated at Wellesley College culminating in the document
and artwork, Racism at Wellesley: Causes and Containment. In this work Piper
uses administration as a methodology to frame and record the racist and
misogynistic injustices she suffered in the workplace. The document is formalised
as a bureaucratic institutional report, reflecting the administrative stylings of the
institution. Citing cumulative data, analysis, mapping, case studies, testimonials,
testing and recommendations, the report outlines the entirety of the experience in
institutionally professional language and tone.
In part, Piper’s report has also inspired the framework for my research. When the
correspondence and administration involved in the bureaucratic containment of
my research has felt overwhelming, understanding it as symptom-materials has
aided in its unwieldy management. Prior to this research, I had not made work
that implicated institutional critique and Piper’s, Racism at Wellesley: Causes and
Containment has provided an inspiring example of containing containment.
23

Dear Adrian Piper,
I’ve just transferred the funds to purchase your book, ‘Escape to Berlin: A
Travel Memoir’. I can’t wait to read it! It’s a great idea to self-publish,
hopefully the APRA is benefitting greatly. I did see that a used copy of the
book was available on Amazon for CAD $2522.31. Maybe the foundation
could sell some books there too—but only if you could stand your work
being part of Bezo’s money machine? I suspect not, you’re way too cool
for that.
I’m writing to you from Vancouver, Canada where I’m working through my
MFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Throughout my research,
I’ve been telling everybody that our work is the same. However, as my
research continues, it's becoming embarrassingly clear that this statement
is an enormous overreach. To be honest, claiming our work is the same is
a shortcut to a much longer story—I know that your experience of the
world and your art practice are much more complicated and layered than
my own.
In drawing this shortcut-comparison, I was framing your work through your
female body and not your skin covered body. Obviously your work is
framed by race. Or a lack of race? Or too much race? Or racism? I do also
believe your work thinks about the female body. Or the difficulties of being
in a mixed-race, black, female body? Or maybe it's about being a woman
in a phallocentric world? Mmnn…..as evidenced in this letter, I’m suffering
from ‘epistemic scepticism’—I read about this condition in a New York
Times article where you said:
(As a woman you are) always second-guessing your own
judgments—about yourself, other people and situations;
always monitoring those judgments to make sure you’re
seeing clearly, have the facts right, aren’t making any
unfounded inferences or deceiving yourself, etc. Women are
particularly skilled at this because their judgement, credibility
and authority start to come under attack during puberty, as
part of the process of gender socialisation. They are made to

24

feel uncertain about themselves, their place in society and
their right to their own opinions25.
I’m definitely recognizing this condition in myself and working through it as
I’m working through my MFA research. My research began with the
question of what the materials of Menopause are and how these materials
might be sourced for an installation practice. However, as the research
has developed, I’ve met some Institutional resistance to the nature of
these Menopause-reflecting materials. Through reams of bureaucratic
communications, meetings and reports, I’ve encountered confusion,
handoffs, petulance, ignorance, gaslighting, stand offs and gatekeeping.
And as a result, my practice has been forced to address the phallocentric
structures of this Institution. Your work, ‘Racism at Wellesley: Causes and
Containment’, is helping me to navigate this challenge. I’ve been
reclaiming the corresponding materials of this containment as
symptom-materials and using them to frame my research. It’s been
mentally (and physically) difficult to redirect these Institutional behaviours,
particularly when living and re-living the hurt occurs during these
documentation purposes. I do wonder if you wrote ‘Racism at Wellesley’ in
real time or after the fact? Sometimes the evidence insidiously bubbles in
my inbox calling to be immediately processed and at other times, the
thought of analysing these hurts makes me want to rage—requiring all of
my energy to contain what will likely be labelled an aggressive
performance by yet another, hysteric Menopausal woman.
Actually, I’d love to ask you a personal question if I may...I’m wondering if
you could tell me more about your celibacy? I’m asking because I’m also
wondering about your relationship to Menopause. Are the two related? I
apologise if this is too personal, but gosh I’d love to hear more about
Menopause from the artists I admire.
Perhaps your celibacy is not related to Menopause at all, but rather a way
for you to remove your body from circulation? A refusal? Through your
move to Germany, you’ve also chosen to remove your body from the
jurisdiction of US soil, in an extreme-endurance performance of refusal. I
wonder if this act of bodily absence continues to accumulate material as
the endurance extends? Oh yes! Of course, this is the content of the book!
I guess this is what is in store for me when my copy arrives. I can’t wait to
find out!
25

(O'Neill, 2018)

25

With much admiration and gratitude,

-

26

Untitled (Clothes Dryer)
The Clothes Dryer Resource Document assesses the conceptual feasibility of the
clothes dryer through its activation of the symptom-materials of Menopause.
CLOTHES DRYER RESOURCE DOCUMENT
How it Performs

Symptom, Rationale

Hot

Hot flushes. Difficulty in maintaining stable temperature. Hot feet.
Sweat, sweat patches. Anger. Drying, dryness. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive), menstruation, menopause.

Wet and Dry

Vaginal dryness, lack of lubrication, loss of libido. Sexuality. Orgasms
that induce bleeding. Sweat, sweat patches. Clots. Blood on hands,
blood in underwear. Extended bleeding. Bacterial Vaginosis.

Electricity and Cycles

Embodied systems (digestive, reproductive), menstruation,
menopause, time (ageing). Potential, hope. Exhaustion. Long
menstrual cycles. Long periods of time without menstruating.

Vibration

Hormone imbalances that effect mood, causing agitation or emotional
responses. Being a Karen26.

Scent Dispersal (broccoli
water)

Hormone imbalances that cause PH imbalances and produce body
odour. Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity.

Audio Dispersal (buttons,
snaps).

Soundtrack to domesticity and gynocentric labour. The constant
annoyance of attending to the body. Unsettling. Headaches.
Agitation. Being a Karen. Long menstrual cycle. Long periods of time
without menstruating.

Familiar Domestic Object

Gynocentric systems of labour, care. Domestic decoration.
Familiarity. Ambiguity.

Vintage Model

Ageing. Infertility. Depression. Existentialism. Dead body. Death.

Door in front of dryer

Vaginas, neo-vaginas, front holes, anuses, mouths. Sexuality.

Shape and Weight

Akin to the artist’s trunk. Change in body shape, lower stomach
expansion. Bulging, bloating.

Metal Construction

Phallocentric systems of labour, resource mining, capitalism.

Add legs, propping clothes
dryer up to 5’8”

Akin to the artist’s height. Domestic decoration and design. Change in
body shape, lower stomach expansion. Bulging, bloating.

Dead fly on top surface of
clothes dryer, vibrating.

Ageing. Infertility. Depression. Existentialism. Dead body. Death.

26

Karen is a popular culture label for a middle-aged, white woman who finds issues with non-issues. She is self-interested and
entitled, probably a bully and usually racist or homophobic. Earlier incarnations of Karen have included Stacie, Becky and Betty. The
term was founded in black culture (more specifically in African/American culture) used to describe these kinds of women behaving
badly, espousing hatred.

27

By critically assessing the clothes dryer’s representation of Menopausal
symptom-materials, the conceptual importance of the active clothes dryer (and broccoli
scent) was solidified. This table confirmed it integral to insist on setting up the
functioning clothes dryer, exhausting the broccoli scent to assess its real-life impact as a
conceptual and functional distributor. Following the SOP exhibition, Untitled (Clothes
Dryer) was approved for installation in a private classroom, available to faculty and the
MFA cohort for the purposes of a critique. This room was selected as it provided an
extraction fan, an openable window and could be contained by its doors.
On entry to the space, the viewer encountered the rear of the spotlighted clothes-dryer;
elevated on four slightly unbalanced, mid-century modern furniture legs. On the top of
the surface of the machine, was a deceased blow-fly laying on its back, buzzing and
vibrating with the action of the dryer. The wooden legs, painted in a
glossy-appliance-white tapered to the polished concrete floor and were fitted with
pewtered feet. One leg is shorter than the others, causing the bodied object to shake,
shudder and sway as the clothes dryer is activated. Another leg is covered with a glossy
white glove, acting as a limp-sock for the foot of the leg.

Heidi Holmes, Untitled (clothes dryer), 2021, Inglis clothes dryer, furniture legs, appliance epoxy,
electricity, towels, safety pins,buttons, snaps, juice of broccoli, water, deceased Greenback Blowfly,
wet-look glove.

28

The broccoli scent is being expelled from the exhaust of the dryer. Its scent reads like
an organic cooking emission, slightly comforting, perhaps repulsive, but manageable in
this small dose in this very large room. The hum and tumble of the dryer in action is
repetitive—though different enough in each cycle to demonstrate that the dryer is filled
with fabrics that contain the fixings one might regularly find in their own wardrobe; zips,
snaps, buttons. Overarching the clothes dryer and its performance is the continuous
and steady drone of the Institutionally sanctioned extraction fan, constantly ensuring
that the impact of the dryer is contained and that its action is never too powerful27.
The audience responded to this work with humour—with the legged clothes dryer
summoning comparisons to animated characters and anthropomorphic machines.
There was also a consensus that the effect of the broccoli scent was very subtle, not at
all overwhelming and that it produced a feeling of familiarity rather than abjection. There
was some suggestion that the gloved-foot hinted at domestic violence and another that
the installation was bordering on being too cute, too friendly. These were all
observations to be considered for the next iteration of the work. Another area of
audience-interest was the reference to domesticity in the materials, with a fellow
researcher highlighting the deep-cleaning she witnessed me perform in the space prior
to the presentation of this work. The question was raised as to whether this
cleaning-labour should be listed in the material label of the work. I had considered
labour as a material earlier in this research when a technical assistant provided crucial
assistance in the construction of an installation structure, but eventually omitted the
labour as I didn’t believe it contributed to the conceptual and creative reading of the
work.
In considering the proposition of cleaning as a material, I looked to Mierle Laderman
Ukeles’, Manifesto for Maintenance Art (1969). This work was a propositional artwork,
environment and activation space that performed maintenance, conceived under the
conditions of Ukuleles' life as an artist, a woman and a mother. Ukeles’ many roles (and
the accompanying cultural expectations) meant that at times, one role moved forward
ahead of the other. In order to manage, she began to map these roles, testing where
dualisms might occur and where role-collaborations might take place. Through this
mapping, Ukeles made the distinction between, development and maintenance in which
the former stands for the creation of the new, progression and excitement, whilst the
latter for preservation, sustenance and renewell. For Ukeles, this determination clarified
that maintenance could be a valuable material for an art practice.

27

*Spoiler! The scent was distributed by the clothes dryer by two small washcloths that had been soaked
in the juice of broccoli and water. As the washcloths cycled in the dryer the emission was expelled from
the exhaust of the dryer. The washcloths also had small objects sewn into them for the purposes of
creating an audio component.

29

Whilst I agree that maintenance, and specifically for this practice, ‘cleaning’ might be a
suitable symptom-material for this research, I have not added it to the Clothes Dryer
Resource Document, but will add it to the The Materials of Menopause Catalogue. The
distinction I’m making here is that cleaning was not a material for this work, rather it was
an activity required to present the work in its best possible light for the most
uncomplicated reading. Perhaps in future works, I’ll use cleaning in a more pointed way
to express my displeasure in the neglect of the spaces in which I’m installing this work
and to nod to the remnants of historical bodies and their traces.

-

30

Dry

Images: Heidi Holmes, Dry, 2021, Clothes dryer, furniture legs, Greenback Blowfly, copper, boiled broccoli
water, wash cloths, buttons, pins, wet-look gloves, steel rail, wall fixtures, sheets, towels, fabric, mesh,
Vagisil pH Balance branding, vegetable dye, dirt, artist’s hair, horse hair, found elevator hairball, found
wall hairs, dry pastels, faux ice cube, Vaseline, height of the artist’s genitals, deconstructed underwear, St
John's Wort, silicone, water, electrical plugs, electrical cord, latex tube, acrylic tube, nitrile glove, peg.

31

The follow-up iteration of the clothes dryer work Dry, made use of my existing
relationship with the previous installation’s classroom location. The installation was
planned and tested over a period of six weeks, where the elements of the work were
installed and de-installed in various iterations every Sunday (the only day of the week
the space was available). The final iteration of the installation took place over three
continuous days and culminated in a critique.
Like the previous work, Dry included the spotlighted clothes dryer, its legs, the blowfly
and its broccoli-soaked washcloths hidden in the dryer barrel, spinning a soundtrack as
they cycled. The installation also included an overly extended towel rack, hung at
standard domestic height and holding an assortment of sheets and towels, dyed with
various earth colours,
stained with dirt and
grime, torn and frayed or
implanted with thick dark
horse hairs. The fabrics
billowed on the rack,
activated by the clothes
dryer’s broccoli scented
exhaust. There were
also puddles of silicon
rimmed water, placed
under the dryer and
amongst the billowing
fabrics and intertwining,
tangled and self plugging
electrical sockets and a
sleeve-like laced copper
addition to the electrical
cord of the dryer. Also
returning to this
installation from The
Materials of Menopause
Catalogue were
Vaseline, wet-look
gloves, found hairs highlighted by colored
dry pastel and Vagisil pH
Balancing branding.

32

In selecting the symptom-materials to construct this installation, I wanted to temper the
suggestion from the former critique of the work feeling ‘too nice’. In this iteration, I was
interested in disordordering, muddying and leaking the materials to move away from the
clinical aesthetics that my practice has favoured. The audience clearly understood this
disordered arrangement as an out-of-control body, also reading “juicy rage” and the
frustration and hopelessness of keeping up with, containing and regulating the
requirements of a body. The broccoli smell was also strongly reported and the rustling of
the fabrics on the rack via the dryer exhaust provided exclamations of sublime beauty28.
In part, the intent of this installation was to invite the Institution to view the work and its
emissions to assess it for inclusion in the forthcoming public MFA Thesis Exhibition.
With this final work approaching, I was determined to exhibit alongside my peers without
the previous restrictions and containments, believing it would be detrimental to my
future professional practice for my work to be inaccessible to visitors.

Image: An invitation to the ‘Director of Technical Services’, ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency
Management, Facilities’, ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’, ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’.
28

*Spoiler! Broccoli juice was also hidden in the puddles.

33

Whilst, the four installations I’ve discussed in this chapter, provided an opportunity to
respond the Institution’s containment, these works are localised gestures within a body
of work that was intended to think about the Menopausal body. And whilst I will likely
continue to make gestures towards the site of these Menopausal works, I am also
interested in developing a model for an institution that is holistically aligned with my
beliefs.

-

34

Host Body
Yard Space Gallery (YSG) is a space for experimental and emerging practices. It is also
a conceptual space, informed and framed by the negotiation and concession of
materials as a result of the bureaucratic conditions of the Institution in which I’m
undertaking an MFA. Though it is not a permanent location, YSG is located on
Instagram, in a private yard and in a basement apartment in Mt Pleasant, Vancouver,
Canada. Whilst these locations are outside of the Institution, I acknowledge they are
imbued with their own problematic conditions29. For the moment, these domestic
environments are the available locations from which the structure and function of YSG
can be developed.
The private yard is a grassed area, with a small vegetable patch and garden beds of
ferns and cottage-garden shrubbery. There is also a large Magnolia tree and a Cherry
tree - too old to bear fruit. An uneven bricked path leads to the entrance of the
basement apartment, which is styled with 1990’s fittings and cabinets and is painted
with a yellowed-beige paint enhanced by dim, warm lighting. The windows in the
apartment are small, the ceiling is low and there are scratches and marks (traces) from
previous tenants (bodies). The apartment is certainly habitable, but it is not glamorous.
My partner and I are tenants at the property and reside (and work) in the dwelling above
YSG.
I am currently the sole administrator of YSG, which includes management of
promotional activities, payment of tenancy fees, fundraising, curating and programming,
installation, hosting and cleaning. I am not paid for these activities, nor do I expect to
be. Currently, I’m not undertaking other unpaid or underpaid work, volunteering or
in-kind activities in the arts and can afford to invest labour into YSG and its community.
In turn, YSG provides me with an opportunity to express myself outside of the
Institutional frame and to practice curatorial practice.
YSG’s activities are determined and guided by an ever-evolving mandate. The mandate
is formed with feminist thought at its foundation and demonstrates curatorial feminism
by referencing feminist knowledge; disordering, unlearning, intervening and
unstabilising the existing strucutures of exhibition spaces. In her text, Feminist Thought
and Curating: On Method, Elke Krasny lays out her conceptual framework for curatorial
feminism from which the YSG mandate is closely drawn:

29

Vancouver is experiencing an affordable housing shortage and is located on the unceded, traditional
and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm , Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Úxwumixw and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ peoples.
Instagram’s ethical problems begin with; data privacy, political biases, ecological impacts and social
issues.

35

…feminist thought makes a claim to the non-monolithic; feminist thought is
marked by paradox and contradiction to which it responds on a number of
different theoretical, methodological, and practical levels; feminist thought
expresses a pronounced resistance to be tied down by definition; feminist
thought is in need of definition; feminist thought is in need of ongoing
re/definition with regard to definition; feminist thought actively expresses
resistance to categorization; feminist thought is characterised by the quest
for transformation and the ongoing process of further differentiation from
within; feminist thought engages in a historiographical project of writing,
re-writing, reflecting, and questioning the processes of knowledge-making
and the resulting knowledge production.30
Administering YSG’s malleable structure has produced a space to work outside of the
containing bureaucracies encountered throughout this MFA. As a site specific
installation artist working with sensory materials, negotiation, curation and collaboration
have been present in my practice in various subsidiary forms. From this experience I
know it is possible to work with these materials in the public realm without too much
interference from governing forces. And so at YSG, agency and autonomy exist in place
of the structural multi-levelled, tenticular power dynamics of the Institution. It has also
been a personal interest of mine to seek out and create community—this was one of the
reasons to undertake an MFA. At YSG I have the opportunity to hold space for artists
and to support and facilitate community.
The ever-evolving YSG mandate is available to read on the following page. As per the
mandate, YSG wholeheartedly welcomes feelings, feedback and critique on this
mandate, the structure of the (dis)organisation, outcomes and everything else. Please
forward any such commentary to: yardspacegallery@gmail.com

30

(Krasny, 2015. P51)

36

Yard Space Gallery (YSG) Mandate
Revised 11:22am, April 29th, 2022
YSG is a place for emerging and experimental practices with curated projects,
open calls and happenings occurring intermittently.
YSG is particularly interested in facilitating projects that cannot occur within the
structure of an institution or in a traditional gallery space.
Curatorial premises, projects and artworks will not be presumptively explained.
YSG believes that the work will communicate in its own mode. Questions and
inquiries are invited and encouraged.
The conditions of viewing and participation at YSG change from project to
project and are mostly determined by the participating artists.
Projects at YSG are open to the public and are viewable on Instagram:
@yardspacegallery and by appointment Direct Messaging (DM) on Instagram.
YSG does not have set viewing times.
Exhibition texts are available in audio or textual formats and are available for
each project on Instagram: @yardspacegallery in the profile biography.
YSG is actively engaged in an endeavour to achieve zero waste.
YSG is un-funded and volunteer powered. Thus, YSG is unable to promise fees
for any services. Sales inquiries are directed to the artist and exhibiting
commissions are never acquired. YSG does not ask artists to make new work
as fees cannot be paid. Any payment associated with or accumulated by YSG
will be directed back to YSG and its contributors.
YSG will follow the Covid-19 Health Guidelines for its district and endeavour to
provide a safe space for its artists and visitors.
YSG is an evolving space that wholeheartedly invites feelings, feedback and
critique on this mandate, the structure of the (dis)organisation, outcomes and
everything else. Questions and concerns are always invited.

37

YSG Case Studies
The following four case studies demonstrate the undertakings of YSG since its inception.
The activities that have taken place have endeavoured to meet the mandate, which has
been carefully shaped and updated alongside the development of hosting these case
studies. Each case study will begin with a conceptual introduction, move onto a
description of the activities and end with a concluding statement.

The author has requested this section be redacted post-publication

38

The author has requested this section be redacted post-publication

39

Case Study: Looking Inside and Outside of the Body
The second exhibition at YSG, Breathing Room and Nature Sounds by Gemma Crowe
and Gigi Cheri took place at the same time as SOP, the Institutional on-campus
exhibition and an exhibition in which both Crowe and Cheri were participating (along
with myself).
Available for in-person viewing at YSG only after sunset (as per the YSG mandate, this
was determined by Crowe for premium viewing conditions), the two practices met each
other in a conversation about the body. Filling every room of the of the basement
apartment and leaking from the windows and doors, Crowe’s work consisted of a series
of projected videos, with hands
reaching and grasping, patterns of
bodily data endlessly looping and
audio tracks with intermittent
sighs, echoing breath and sudden
bursts of lone piano notes. On
viewing the work in the darkness,
in this domestic space, Crowe’s
work asks us to check in with
ourselves, with our bodies.

Image: Breathing Room (installation
detail) by Gemma Crowe

Located in the external yard at YSG, Cheri’s work was a recording of the research that
informed the work displayed in the on-campus, SOP exhibition. The research followed
Cheri as she taste-tested berries, examined plants and plopped rocks into the
river—recording their sound also squishing a mushroom with her finger to capture its
tiny squeak. Through this research Cheri is reclaiming her indigeneity, she is looking
outside of herself, to nature and to the knowledge of her ancestors to inform her work
(and her being).
Like the first exhibition at YSG, the relationship between the two works was formed by
two already existing bodies of work. Crowe’s work had been shown in a studio critique
that was compromised by the rigid guidelines of the building (she wasn’t permitted to

40

hang a projector, or move existing furniture in the critique space). Cheri’s work was part
of a Summer research project - a series of experiments and writings on her virtual
studio blog (only internally viewable) that outlined her processes and discoveries. When
Cheri was invited to show her textual research alongside Crowe’s re-imagined work, she
recorded the writing as an audio track, also integrating some singing and the sound
effects she recorded in the forest. The collaboration of the practices of Crowe and Cheri
emerged as the basement apartment at YSG became vacant. I wanted to make space
for two projects that would support and inform each other, whilst also addressing the
internal (Crowe looks within the self) and external (Cheri looks outside of the self)
locations of the two bodies of work at YSG.

Nature Sounds, Soundcloud profile, written, performed and edited by Gigi Cheri

The late night viewing times provided optimal viewing for Crowe’s work, but in turn
perhaps also reduced the audience for this exhibition. Visitors sat in a circle in the dark
garden to experience Cheri’s sound work and then moved onto Crowe’s indoor work.
Exhibiting dual audio and durational works was difficult as the visitor was required to
spend considerable time with both artists' work and as a result, I found that visitor focus
favoured one artist over the other and in turn, the works were not read in conversation
with each other.

41

Case Study: Sub-Practice
Sub-Practice celebrated Institutional-practice adjacent work, rejoicing in amateurism,
improvisation and un-chartered skills and placing experimentation, failing over success
and process-based making as important and legitimate vocations. For many, the
undertaking of an Institutional art program under the command of the Covid-19
pandemic has raised the stakes on success, with many candidates struggling to arrive
into this Institution, to remain here and to thrive here.

Photographer Jimena Diaz-Jirash installed an eyelash-batting, raw chicken-skin,
suspended sculpture that rotted over the duration of the exhibition. New Media
Installation artist, Guillaume Saur presented a piece of composed music, resounding
from a deconstructed ceiling duct. Painter Lacey-Jane Wilburn installed a sculptural
chandelier, draped with her own handmade jewellery. Sculptor Gwenyth Chao switched
from stabilising materials to a crumbling soil plinth which displayed a biodegradable
sculpture. Found Material Sculptor, Kyla Gilbert-Heaney presented a remnant from her
sculptural work that she attempted to dispose of (and was caught!). Installation and
Social Practice artist, Sidi Chen and Installation artist, Heidi Holmes (that’s me!)
presented a collaborative project, where an archived audio work of Chen’s was

42

administered through transposition. Painter Stephanie Baur performed a subterranean
baking session, taken from a recipe in her handbound, handwritten recipe book.
As these works were originally conceived of, or performed under the guise of
sub-practices, they required some finessing to bring them to an exhibition state. To
ensure Sub-Practice met the YSG mandate of no out-of-pocket costs for participating
artists, a materials grant of $100 was granted by ECUAD Graduate Studies. I also
acquired a payment of $50 for completing a survey with Centre Center—an organisation
interested in supporting ‘third spaces’—art organisations that function with alternate
structures. This payment has been forwarded to emerging writer Matty Flader who will
write a review of Sub-Practice for publication.
Exhibiting the work of seven artists (including myself) drew considerably larger crowds
to YSG with friends and family coming to support their loved ones. Buer’s, Subterranean
Baking Performance also drew much interest, with the audience hopeful for a slice of
cake as they viewed the exhibition. Several of the participants expressed that working
outside of their Institutional practices, sparked new methods, new ideas for materials
and an interest in further challenging the constraints of material practice in the
Institution.

43

Case Study: Professionalism
For the fourth YSG case study, I invited an unpracticed curator, Flavia Carton—a
veterinary office assistant and part-time magazine editor who enjoys art and visiting
galleries (including YSG), but doesn’t have any formal experience in curating. Carton
excitedly agreed to undertake the project and was advised that she must follow the
mandate of YSG, with as little or as much support from me as she desires. As per the
YSG mandate, Carton will have a budget for curating the project of $322. This budget
was produced by an invitation for me to speak on a panel at the Institution about my
experience in the MFA program and to introduce YSG to the audience. Having another
voice facilitating and developing the YSG mandate is very exciting.

Images: YSG floorplan image drawn by Flavia Carton and documentation image of (Without) Losing
Oneself by Kyla Gilbert

Curator Carton invited YSG regular, Kyla-Gilbert to exhibit her work under her curatorial
direction. (In Flavia’s words) The exhibition, “(Without) Losing Oneself is an audio virtual
experience blending installation and interactive participation within a space animated by
a series of sensory and visual cues, a revision of past work, and a playground for
reinventing premeditated notions of scale, ressources, and material boundaries.
(Without) Losing Oneself investigates the relationship between bodies, performance,
and narrative within domestic environments”.
The resulting exhibition visually consists of a mostly empty apartment lit by stage
lighting, with a single sculptural work of balanced wood and rubber bursting from the
bathroom. On entry to the apartment the audience is asked to scan a QR code,
producing a link to an audio file which is listened to as the audience moves through the
space. The audio file is a description of several sculptural works, which are described

44

as if exhibited within the rooms at YSG. I consider the work to be a great use of YSG’s
resources, of Gilbert’s alumni status and her familiarity with the space and of the YSG
mandate to produce no new work. Carton’s lack of experience in curating is not evident
here31.
As my time in Vancouver nears an end,
I hope to continue the work of YSG in my next location.

31

Further documentation of YSG can be found at https://www.instagram.com/yardspacegallery/

45

Where Bodies Meet
This chapter recounts and reflects upon my final months of the MFA program
at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
In recent months my attention has been focused on this paper, programming, curating,
producing two exhibitions at YSG, and developing an artwork for the MFA 2022 Thesis
Exhibition. At a recent point, all else was rested as the planning for the exhibition
became more urgent. As always, I wanted to make the most of this final opportunity,
doing everything I could to present my best possible work to the largest potential
audience. The first step in this process was selecting a space to exhibit that would allow
for the clothes dryer and broccoli scent to be activated materials. Several enclosed
spaces were selected, each with their benefits and all including either an air extraction
system or an openable window. However, I felt it important for my work to be in the
same vicinity as my cohort and accessible to the general public, this preference
reducing the viable options.
As the planning progressed it was revealed that my persistence with the
symptom-materials had resulted in a new process for assessing ‘unconventional’
materials, coined Project Safety Planning (PSP). A completed form and a meeting with
the interested Institutional parties was all it would require to get the project underway.
The Director of Technical Services leading the PSP committee advised that I should
assume the materials have been approved by the committee and continue work on my
final project. I secured the large gallery space at the end of the exhibition hall, where I
had previously installed work for the SOP exhibition, although this time, the entire
gallery was available to me.
Whilst deep in the process of planning, hiring an assistant, measuring, collecting
materials, customising the materials and cleaning, painting, bleaching and dyeing, the
PSP meeting took place. I was advised that it was not necessary for me to prepare for
the meeting, as I had invested so much time into the process already. However, the
meeting began with the Director of Technical Services asking me to present the project,
its facets, an explanation as to why the project was so important to me, and an
explanation as to why the proposed materials were integral to the conceptual reading of
the work. Although these explanations were already in the completed PSP form, I was
unprepared to present my work in this way and completely floundered, explaining that I
was nervous.32 Despite reassurances from all attendees, my nervousness was
underlined by twelve months of prior exchanges about this project, during which the
attendees’ frustrations with each other and with my work were frequently an explicit or
32

The completed PSP form is available to view in Appendix III of this document.

46

implicit thread. I was also terrified that revealing any small piece of additional
information might undo the latest positive negotiations. I left the meeting feeling unsure
as to whether the active clothes dryer and broccoli scent were officially approved and
was too frightened to clarify the ruling in fear of saying the wrong thing and the whole
project collapsing.
The Director of Technical Services visited me in my studio soon after the meeting. He
clarified that the proposed materials were approved, contingent on risk assessment
details (viewable in Appendix III) being met and then asked for feedback on the PSP
process. I explained that it was stressful for me to present my project about Menopause
to the PSP panel of four men, three of which had continually rejected my proposals, and
until this time had only been represented by faceless email accounts. I had also been
advised not to prepare for the meeting and was deep into the process of making the
work with the deadline for the exhibition quickly approaching—the stakes felt very high.
He explained that this type of meeting is standard practice for institutions, and that the
experience can be viewed as preparation for my professional career. I responded by
explaining that I am a student and an artist and I'm not accustomed to making such
Institutional presentations. Furthermore, I have worked in installation practice for some
time, exhibiting in institutions, in commercial spaces, artist-run galleries and public
spaces, and have never negotiated a proposed work with an Institutional board of
adjudicators in this manner. The Director of Technical Services explained that this was a
test-case for the PSP process and that these processes would be further developed for
future PSP adjudications.
Somehow, despite being recruited into this interdisciplinary MFA program with a specific
folio of work that demonstrated these kinds of materials, the Institution
has been completely unprepared to host my practice. Without my consent or willing
participation, I have become a ‘test-case.’ I was not invited to be a ‘test-case’ for the
PSP panel and was not asked to assist in developing its parameters. I had no idea what
those parameters were, how the results were determined, and by whom. But being a
‘test-case’ was not optional, it was now essential in order to present my work.
Ultimately, my nervousness in participating in the PSP process was proven to be
justified. My thoroughness in a provisional drawing, which was required to meet the
contingent risk assessment steps, demonstrated Vaseline applied to the windows and
balustrades of the gallery space. I had applied this treatment to gallery windows on
multiple occasions, and it had been viewed in this way by all of the PSP adjudicators at
least six months before this time. However, it was suddenly deemed too risky by the
General Manager P3, Facilities. This major adjustment was delivered after the exhibition
was designed around the use of this certain and proven material, the Vaseline had been

47

bulk-purchased, the installation and deinstallation of this major component had been
planned with an assistant scheduled, and most terrifyingly, the sudden ruling was
delivered eight days before the exhibition was due to open.33 It is important to
emphasise here, that since this ruling I have witnessed multiple artworks in various
capacities hung directly on the glass of the windows in this location and in other
locations within the Institution without fanfare. It is clear that the only difference between
these works and my work is the symptom-materials, and my diligence in trying to meet
the Institution with transparency and sincerity.
I was devastated by this news. It truly felt like I would never be able to make the work I
came here to make. My initial thought was to drop out of the degree, followed by the
idea of making a ‘fuck the Institution’ protest work, followed by trying to problem solve
the axing of the major component, followed again by planning to drop out of the degree.
Thankfully, my MFA Supervisor offered to be my proxy in disputing this ruling,
challenging the reasoning and demanding solutions and material compensations. Over
the following days, the resulting meetings produced alternative material solutions to the
initial Vaseline treatment and an ongoing point-person in the Director of Technical
Services. The solution that I deemed to have the closest reading to the original proposal
was to apply the Vaseline to an acrylic substrate that could be leaned lightly on the
window frame and secured with museum wax. The Director of Technical Services
provided the acrylic material and additional help in the assignment of two student
workers. Whilst the solution, the materials, and the help were received, the experience
was exhausting in an already demanding time. Between all that was occurring and
enduring the symptoms of Menopause (which are greatly exasperated by stress), I was
almost completely burnt out.
I both love and hate the installation stage of my practice. I love it because it is when the
preliminary planning can finally be realised in space and determinations can be made
as to whether the elements perform as imagined. I also very much enjoy the challenge
of troubleshooting and re-checking the conceptual ideals to ensure I’m meeting the
intended brief. I hate the installation process when it is physically demanding and
backbreaking—and when the imagined result feels completely unachievable right up
until the last moments. Planning can only reduce the stress of the demands of an
Installation practice so much and planning for this exhibition was almost impossible
considering the scale of the gallery space. I could only mock up the scale of this
installation in portions, designing the 27’ x 13’ wall component on a floor space that
measured 13’ x 13’. This meant I would never see the finished design outside of my
mock up drawings until it was hung in the space.
33

The correspondence banning the application of Vaseline to the windows is available to view in
Appendix IV of this document.

48

Image: Mock up drawing of In this body of work, the symptoms of Menopause become material, 2022

One of the biggest challenges during the installation of this final work was my reliance
on the Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician to assist in hanging components
that could only be achieved by using the Skyjack—a hydraulic scissor scaffold. The
Skyjack is the only way to reach the 25’ heights in this space and the Exhibitions
Coordinator + Gallery Technician is the only person available to operate the machinery.
Their reluctance to make an appointment-time meant I was on standby in the gallery for
five days, wondering when they would arrive, how long I would have with them, and
ensuring I was thankful enough so that they might want to come back to help me again.
The hanging of the work using the Skyjack was quicker and easier than anticipated, so
the final touches were left for completion on the final week-day. When the Exhibitions
Coordinator + Gallery Technician arrived that day, we began work immediately,
anticipating an hour and a half of Skyjack use. Our work was quickly interrupted by a
staff member of the General Manager P3, Facilities’ team, who advised that the Skyjack
had been booked until the end of the day for security camera maintenance and would
need to be handed over immediately. This was the last day that the Exhibitions
Coordinator + Gallery Technician was able to assist me and the installation was at least

49

one and half hours from completion. I had to beg the staff to allow us to use the Skyjack
for another thirty minutes. Eventually, we were able to complete the work, but only after
the Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician worked after-hours.
At every turn I am challenged to considerately and articulately express that what I’m
making is art, that art is important and that this is an art school, for the purpose of
making art. It is mortifying and exhausting to beg, to continually explain my
symptom-materials to panels of adjudicators and to choose whether to question or
accept seemingly unreasoned, reasoning. These documented reflections, may be
considered complaints, however as my time within the Institution draws to an end and
the stakes of my degree are no longer at risk—I follow feminist scholar Sara Ahmed in
her consideration of public complaint as a feminist pedagogy.34 These reflections,
therefore, invite a consideration of what my specific experiences and their outcomes tell
us about how artistic bodies of work like mine intersect with Institutional bodies and
power dynamics.
After seven very long days the installation of the work was completed. The work titled,
In this body of work, the symptoms of Menopause become material reached every
corner of the cavernous space, addressing the architecture and scale of the gallery
whilst also presenting a clinical aesthetic and meeting the conceptual intent of the work.
The installation included a 27’ wall, covered in towel rails and racks and holding various
fabrics that have been bleached, painted, dyed, frayed, folded, ironed and arranged. In
the centre of the gallery space was the clothes dryer attached to a long hot-pink
extension cord and cycling five times a day for forty-five minutes. Atop the dryer a
deceased blow-fly lays on its back, buzzing and vibrating with the dryer’s movement.

Images: Heidi Holmes, In this body of work, the symptoms of
Menopause become material, 2022, Sheets, towels, fabric, dye,
vegetable dye, food colouring, bleach, paint, racks, shelves, clothes
dryer, blowfly, trolley, washcloths, fasteners, broccoli juice, pots,
glasses, bowls, containers, pump, silicone, vinyl, water, the
measurement of blood from the artist's last Menstrual cycle,
measurement of healthy pH vaginal discharge (and underwear
bleaching), measurement of fluid in the artist's body, the artist's height,
Vaseline, acrylic, underwear, St John's wort, horse hair, artist hair, goat
milk soap, KY lubricant (sensitive), electrical cords, plugs, washing
line, pegs, diamante flower.Installation dimensions are variable,
clothes dryer performance 45 mins. Clothes Dryer Performances: 9:30,
11:30, 1:30, 3:30, 5:30.
34

(Ahmed, 2021)

50

Inside the clothes dryer are two washcloths, soaked in broccoli juice and fitted with
various buttons and snaps, drying and producing the sounds one might hear as they
launder their clothes at home. The exhaust of the clothes dryer emits the scent of the
drying broccoli and hot air, slightly moving 27’ foot swaths of fabric hanging in the centre
of the space. Five times a day, I would bring two fresh washcloths, soak them in the
bowl of broccoli juice on the shelf of the dryer-trolley, and move the clothes dryer to a
new position. I would then wring-out the washcloths, set the dryer to dry and ensure the
swath of fabric was being sufficiently rustled by the clothes dryer exhaust.
Located In the centre of the
gallery space was a collection of
domestic kitchenware holding
various measurements of water;
the measurement of blood from
my last Menstrual cycle (492ml),
the measurement of healthy pH
vaginal discharge—causing
underwear bleaching (28ml) and
the measurement of fluid in my
body (39L). This collection of
measurement-holders slashed
across the centre of the space in
a scar-like fissure. Elsewhere in
the space was a clothesline hung
at 20’ with a long piece of
magenta fabric extending all the
way to the concrete floor, a pile of
underwear soaked in St John’s
wort and rolled off the body, the
reappearance of the self-plugging
power sockets and a clear acrylic
shelf hung at 14’ with a goat milk
soap stalactite forming and
reaching towards the floor.

Framing the entire installation is a delineation running the entire span of the gallery
space, violently slashing through towels and fabrics, defining the height of the existing
window blinds, marking the ballastraudes in a single finger-smeared line of Vaseline,
determining the height of the Vaseline-smeared acrylic sheets leaning against the

51

window frames and even reaching the blow-fly and clothes dryer on the trolley. This
enduring line reflects the height of my body.
The title of the work, In this body of work, the symptoms of Menopause become material
refers to the process I’ve undertaken in this research. It is a more direct title than how I
usually title my works. My usual preference is for the title to hint at the conceptual frame
of the work, but not be so direct that it closes the audience off to other kinds of readings.
I went back and forth on this title for some time. Should the Institutional adjustments be
mentioned here? In the title? In the materials? Throughout this program I’ve made
adjustments to my practice, my process and perhaps even my personality to
accommodate the Institution in various forms. But in this final project, I wanted
Menopause to be the main character.

As much as this was my desire, as I discussed earlier in this chapter, the Institution did
have a hand in curating this work with many adjustments made to accommodate their
requests. In planning this work I also adjusted the materials in anticipation of certain
restrictions—like the cycling clothes dryer and the emitted broccoli scent. The exhibition
was planned with a contingency plan to omit these materials, so in some ways the work
repeats itself with its wet-dry, hot-cold, object-abject and domestic elements. Ultimately,

52

the expansive gallery space was able to accommodate this repetition, in turn enhancing
the immersive experience of the work.
In the development of this work, I looked to the Materials of Menopause Catalogue from
which I both drew materials, and to which I added four new materials.35 The first of
these materials was KY Lubricant (Sensitive)—perhaps an obvious and overdue
inclusion, but I felt it important to add a pointed reminder to the audience that at the
centre of this work is perhaps the one of the most discussed of Menopausal symptoms,
a dry vagina.
The second of these four materials was ‘bleach.’ In this work, the fabrics, sheets and
towels have been wet and dried, wet and dried. They are integrated, layered and frayed,
torn, cut, painted, dyed and bleached. I began with an interest in bleach after
researching underwear staining and bleaching and the ability of the vagina to produce
bleaching discharge when it is at its
optimal pH level. I consider this an
incredible superpower and wanted to
honour it in this work through replication. I
was also interested in bleach as a material
for deep cleaning and for its quality of
conversion and development. The longer it
stays with the fabric, the further effect it
has—with age it also becomes corrosive,
also referencing its potential violence, its
ability to burn, to overwhelm, and to
damage.
The third material to be added to the
Materials of Menopause Catalogue was
‘monolithic scale.’ In this work, 30 foot
swaths of fabric cut and carve up the
gallery space and are then activated by
the clothes dryer’s exhaust. As well as
wanting to address to the scale of the
space in which I was exhibiting, I also
wanted to make a work that ensured
Menopause was definetly present in this
Institution.
35

The complete list of materials for In this body of work, the symptoms of Menopause become material
and their conceptual references are available to read in Appendix V.

53

The fourth material added to the catalogue was ‘fabric’ (aside from towels and sheets).
Fabric arose for this work as I began to think about the generational knowledge of
Menopause – perhaps more specifically, my lack of generational knowledge. I only
knew bad jokes about Menopause before my experience of it—I hadn’t learned about it
in Sex Education classes, my mother hadn’t really experienced it and she and her
mother did not discuss it. I began to wonder what is cycled from generation to
generation. I thought about my mothers character traits and gestures, about family
heirlooms, recipes, photographs and finally Hope Chests filled with precious fabrics and
domestic adornments - prized legacies of domestic upkeep passed on in an act of
maternal care.
In my mid teens my mother
asked me if I would like for her
to start a Hope Chest for me, I
said no. I thought it old
fashioned and embarrassing,
told her I’d probably never
marry, never have children and
probably not live to thirty—Kurt
Cobain had just died. She was
mortified. Twenty years later
when my grandmother died, my
mother and I went to her home
to take a few things to
remember her. It was the closets
of linens, bursting with thinned
floral sheets, table-cloths, laced
with silverfish holes and
abandoned sewing projects that
peaked my interest. These aged
and soft skinned fabrics perhaps
partly intended to fill my own
Hope Chest had now cycled around to replace the matriarch of the family. In the studio,
as I began to replicate, reference and think on these fabrics, it occured to me that
Menopause strikes at this generational cycling. I will not pass precious domestic fabrics
to my own offspring. This is now certain.
Performance was another new element in this body of work (though it has not been
added to the catalogue—yet). Throughout my practice, I have often felt my work was
calling for a performance component, and being a shy person, I have resisted this
calling thus far. However, in order for this work to function at its best, the clothes dryer
54

and broccoli scent would need to be activated by a human that could soak a cloth, wring
it out, put it in the clothes dryer, set the dryer on a cycle and position the dryer in the
gallery to effectively move the fabric swaths—this would need to occur five times a day.
I felt I was the only suitable human for the role. The duration of my appearance in the
work would generally last two to three minutes with the clothes dryer undertaking the
bulk of the performance work.
I undertook this
performance five times a
day, for seven days and
on completion of the last
performance of the day
(6:15pm), I completed a
number of laborious tasks
that were invisible to the
audience. Each
performance eve, I would
wash the displayed
broccoli bowl, check the
floor of the gallery for any
spillage or audience
detritus, pick accumulated
dust and threads off the
swaths of fabric, rub shoe
marks from the walls and
subdue finger marks in
the Vaseline-covered
windows. I would also
refill the air-evaporated portion of water to ensure the measurement-holders remained
accurate. Later at home I would prepare two litres of fresh broccoli juice by chopping,
boiling, straining, containing and refrigerating the potion. I would also launder the ten
required washcloths, preventing a build up of the broccoli residue. As I undertook this
invisible labour, I began to revisit my relationship to Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Manifesto
for Maintenance Art, a propositional artwork, environment and activation that performed
maintenance and considered it as a material to represent preservation, sustenance and
renewell. As stated earlier in this paper, I’d been unwilling to add maintenance (or
cleaning) to the catalogue—as I resent it as a material, particularly in an artwork that is
founded on my experience of being in a female sexed body and as ‘Maintenance’ is tied
to ‘domesticity, which has been historically determined as a ‘female’ interest and role.
However, after the continued performance of the required maintenance tasks and the

55

ensuing exhaustion, I finally emphatically agree that maintenance (and cleaning) are
valuable materials and essential to the layered reading and presentation of this work.
A surprising element discovered during the maintenance was the interference of the
work and its materials during the exhibition period. The clothes dryer was constantly
opened, moved and switched on and the Vaseline-d windows fingered. Were these
audience interventions responses to the gendered determination of these materials? Do
the interferers feel as though they have a right to touch these familiar materials—do
they value and feel they possess these materials in the same way they value and
possess the body that is undertaking this work?
The audience interventions have also raised questions of the determination of what
constitutes ‘high art’ and is accorded the respect of freedom from being groped. Will a
clothes dryer ever make the cut? How about fabric—it is so materially close to canvas?
When viewing this work, a painting student asked me what I was going to do with the
racks and rails after the exhibition was finished. The question infers that the material of
the work is not transformed by my intervention with it, and that an installation practice
with found objects is ripe for disassembly and reuse. Politely deflecting the insulting
question, I explained that the same question could be asked of the painting student’s
canvas after they’d finished exhibiting their paintings. I also told them I was going to sell
this work to a museum (I wish!).
These questions about the value of labour and time, of the audience’s interference with
materials, and the interrogation of value in materials are areas I hadn’t expected to
respond to in 2022 during an interdisciplinary MFA in a contemporary art school.
Perhaps this line of questioning is accelerated by the theme at the core of this project
and the true line of enquiry is hidden in these peripheral questions—what is the value of
a Menopausal body (Menopause is the penultimate death in the many deaths of the
female body)?

56

Future Body
From the position of having just completed In this body of work, the symptoms of
Menopause become material, recently undertaking the defense process, opening the
fourth Yard Space Gallery exhibition and preparing a work for the Graduate Exhibition, I
haven’t had time to reflect on the installation’s effectiveness. As always, these
assessments will become clearer as my exhaustion wears off, I begin to sleep again
and new ideas begin to bubble. In the meantime, I do feel satisfied to have finally made
a public work about Menopause at this scale, with audio and olfactory elements and
with electricity and heat and water that leaks and cycles and pumps, performs and
repeats. I have ensured that Menopause exisits at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
As it always has, the body will endure in this practice. As a teen, I took part in my first
life drawing class, followed by several years exploring self-portraits, mental health and
community relationships, moving onto a five year body of work that explored infertility, to
my current practice which examines the embodied experience of Menopause and its
extensions and structures. Throughout this research I’ve collected, researched and
interrogated the conditions of Menopause. I’ve developed a system to convert the
symptoms of Menopause into materials and made use of these materials to construct
and deconstruct a corporeal form with the kind of agency I’ve always coveted for my
own body. I didn’t expect to be referring to Institutional critique in relation to Menopause,
but the conditions of the Institution in which this work has taken place has demanded it.
This localised understanding of Institutional structures has also drawn attention to the
larger structures of Menopause and the ways in which they continue to be upheld by
phallocentic culture.
As documented in this paper, it has been difficult to work through this research as my
own body experienced the symptoms of Menopause. However, I am well practised in
the porous intersections between life and art—through fertility treatment where I injected
myself with hormones in art gallery back rooms and kitchens, miscarriage after
miscarriage. However, this situation reminds me to consider less privileged Menopausal
bodies, bodies that have burdonsome financial responsibilities rendering them unable to
take time for Menopausal symptoms, less acknowledgment from health care
professionals, and less empathy from their partners, family and communities. Ultimately,
I am content to be here in this body, with an art practice as my confidant and at the
centre of my community.
I arrived onto the unceded, traditional and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm ,
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ peoples (otherwise known as Vancouver, CA)
as an international student, from a Zoom portal 3500km away in the middle of the
Covid-19 pandemic and at a time in history that has been named as the Black Lives
57

Matter Movement. It has been a challenging time to focus on the minutiae of the
Menopausal condition when there is so much urgency in other matters. Perhaps this
has been a repeated determination as there is still so much unknown about Menopause
and its tentacles. However, it is my hope that through this research and in drawing
further attention to the Menopausal body, some fertile progress will develop.

58

Appendices

59

Appendix I.

THE MATERIALS OF MENOPAUSE CATALOGUE
Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Genital height

Awareness of reproductive
organs in the viewer and artist.
Viewer makes bodily
relationship to material and to
artist. The invisibility of
Menopausal bodies.

Not required.

Standard domestic construction
and design dimensions

Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Check that walls have ply
backing before installing
structure.

Mirror

Self awareness, ego.
Confrontational.

Not required.

Vaseline

Softening the lens, softening
age. Lubricant to move dry
parts. Derived from oil
(phallocentric labour). Sticky,
oozy. Brain fog.

Remove all oils and residue.
Use vinegar or cleaning
solution with grease removing
capabilities.

Vagisil PH Balance branding

Feminine branding. Product
used to counter effects of PH
imbalance, which can cause
Bacterial Vaginosis,
discomfort, odour.

Copyright may be required for
public use.

Towel

Vaginal dryness, lack of
lubrication. Loss of libido.
Dries every part of the body,
face, ass, vagina. Intimacy.
Domesticity.

Not required.

Towel rack

Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Check that walls have ply
backing before installing
structure.

Heated towel rack

Cycles. Electrical systems.
Gynocentric household labour.
Cleansing. Heat, dryness.
Long Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating.

Requires signage and constant
supervision.

60

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Bath mat

Used to dry wetness.
Domesticity. Relating to hot
feet.

Not required.

Heat

Hot flushes, hot feet.
Difficulty maintaining stable
temperature. Sweat, sweat
patches. Anger. Drying,
dryness. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing).

Requires signage and constant
supervision.

Lump in floor, obstacle

Exhaustion. Insidious,
surprise, unsteadying. Lump
in breast, cervix, ovary, throat.
Risk of cancer, stroke from
taking hormones. Backache.
Cramping. Infertility. Long
Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating. Uncomfortable
in body. Being a Karen.

Requires signage.

Underwear

Intimate product, touches
genitals, rubs. Protects. Holds
secretions. Holds pads, panty
liner. Fabric should be
complementary to body cotton. Fashion item.
Expression of sexuality.

Not required.

St John’s wort

Used to treat depression and
insomnia in menopausal
women. Balances fluctuating
hormones.

Ensure quantity is not
consumable and limited.

Goat milk soap

Sensitive skin, skin changes.
Hives. Cleanliness. Nullify
odour. Sweat, sweat patches.
Purity.

Remove all oils and residue
from surfaces.

Soap dish

Skin. Cleanliness. Nullify
odour. Sweat, sweat patches.
Purity. Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Not required.

61

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Looping clothes dryer audio

The constant annoyance of
attending to the body,
unsettling. Exhaustion. Being
a Karen. Cycles. Gynocentric
labour. Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity. Long Menstrual
Cycle. Long periods of time
without Menstruating.

Check audio leakage.

Artist’s hair

Thinning hair, hair growing
where it didn’t before. The
grotesque feeling of finding
someone else’s hair on/in your
body. Pubic regions. Sexuality.

Not required.

Horse hair

Premarin - pregnant horse urine
used in hormones. Wigs,
synthetic hair to replace human
hair.

Not required.

Broccoli

Broccoli, lemon and white
vinegar - ingredients for the
scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Mould concern. Requires
signage and constant
supervision. Any scent needs to
be approved by Facilities,
Technical Services, and OHS
Manager.

White vinegar

Broccoli, lemon and white
vinegar - ingredients for the
scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity. Explosive in large
quantities. Add a little to cook
chicken eggs - infertility.

Requires signage. Any scent
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager. Must be
less than one cup of vinegar
(can be explosive).

Lemon

Broccoli, lemon and white
vinegar - ingredients for the
scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.
Has skin/peel. Conductive of
electricity.

Mould concern. Requires
signage and constant
supervision. Any scent needs to
be approved by Facilities,
Technical Services, and OHS
Manager.

Ekphrasis

A poetic method of describing a
sensory experience. Used in
this practice when sensory
elements were muted.

Not required.

62

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Water

Leaky. Flooding, errant clots.
Sweat, sweat patches.

Requires constant supervision
or signage if unsupervised.
Connections must be well
fastened and reliable to prevent
a flood. Water mopped up at
the end of every day and
re-installed.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager.

Adzuki beans

Red beans eaten during
menstruation to increase low
energy (prescribed by Xinwei).
Blood, brown blood. Blood
stained underwear.

Mould concern. Requires
signage and constant
supervision. Any scent needs to
be approved by Facilities,
Technical Services, and OHS
Manager.

Water bath

Cycle, heat pumping like a
body. Hot flush, hot, burning
feet. Sweat, sweat patches.
Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing).
Leaky. Flooding, errant clots.
Cooking for a large guest list many women. Domesticity.
Familiarity, ambiguity. Steam,
foggy. Boiling water, agitation.
Long Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating.

Requires signage and constant
supervision. Connections must
be well fastened and reliable to
prevent a flood. Water emptied
at the end of every day and
re-installed.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager.

Cooking pots

Cycle, heat pumping like a
body. Hot flush, hot, burning
feet. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing). Leaky.
Flooding, errant clots.
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity. Steam, foggy.
Boiling water, agitation. Long
Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating.

Requires signage and constant
supervision. Connections must
be well fastened and reliable to
prevent a flood. Water emptied
at the end of every day and
re-installed.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager.

63

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Induction cooktop

Cycle, heat pumping like a
body. Hot flush, hot, burning
feet. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing). Domesticity.
Familiarity, ambiguity. Steam,
foggy. Boiling water, agitation.
Long Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating.

Requires signage and constant
supervision.

Pot grime

Domesticity, gynocentric labour.
Historical traces. Filth, the
grotesque, odour.

Not required.

Latex

I have a latex allergy, disrupting
skin and PH levels with latex
glove or condom use. This is a
dangerous material for me.
Latex gloves - hands around
vagina, tampon use, sex.
Menstrual blood on hands.
Latex base for hairs implanted
in wall - skin, flesh, peeling.

Remove all oils and residue.

Extraction fan

Sanctioned by institution to
mitigate scent. Drone,
headaches. Sweat, sweat
patches. Exhaust exhaustion. Long Menstrual
Cycle. Long periods of time
without Menstruating.

Must always be in use to
mitigate odours.

Looping extraction fan audio

The constant annoyance of
attending to the body,
unsettling. Exhaust Exhaustion. Reminder of the
sanctions. Cycles. Gynocentric
labour. Drone, headaches.
Sweat, sweat patches.
Agitation - Being a Karen.
Long Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating.

Check audio leakage.

Cleaning

Gynocentric household labour,
containing the body. Nullify
odour. Sweat, sweat patches.
Purity.

64

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Gel light filter

Turns the scene into a horror
set. Blood, menstruation.
Urgency, emergency. Long
Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating. Blood stained
underwear.

Requires scissor lift, work with
Exhibition Technician. Ensure
tape does not leave residue.

Dimensional lumber

Interior structure of wall
construction. Invisible labour,
phallocentric labour.
Institutional bones. Peeling
back the skin of the institution.
Making the professional
environment, domestic.

Not required.

Electrical cord

Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing).

Must be undertaken in
collaboration with Facilities.

Male electrical plugs

Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing).
Phallocentric energy. Sexuality.
Fucking. Infertility.

Must be undertaken in
collaboration with Facilities.

Zinc oxide

Scent - for all of the pain, still
no baby (reference to older
work). Zinc can help to ease
some of the symptoms of
Perimenopause.

Remove all oils and residue.

Found hair

The traces of other bodies in a
space. Thinning hair, hair
growing where it didn’t before.
The grotesque feeling of finding
someone else’s hair on/in your
body. Pubic regions. Sexuality.

Not required.

Graphite

The compressed coal of
something else. Time, ageing.
Heat remnants.

Remove all residue.

Faux ice cube

A salve for heat. Hot flushes,
hot feet. Sweat, sweat
patches. Difficulty
maintaining stable
temperature. Anger. Drying,
dryness. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing).

Not required.

65

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Nitrile gloves

Not latex (allergy). A container
for water that looks like a body
part. Hands around vagina,
tampon use, sex. Menstrual
blood on hands. Filled with
water - Change in body
shape, lower stomach
expansion. Bulging, bloating.

Connections must be well
fastened and reliable to prevent
a flood.

The amount of blood from the
artist’s last menstrual cycle

Blood stained underwear.
Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing).
Irregular cycles. Unbalanced
hormones. Fertility and
infertility. Time, Ageing.
Awareness of reproductive
organs in the viewer and artist.
Viewer makes bodily
relationship to material and to
artist. The invisibility of
Menopausal bodies. Long
Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating.

Not required.

Room temperature objective of
26°C

Hot flushes, hot feet. Sweat,
sweat patches. Difficulty
maintaining stable
temperature. Anger. Drying,
dryness. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing). Inability to meet
temperature due to institutional
restrictions - it seems like you
have autonomy through a
control panel but the panel is
disabled..

Not required.

Found holes

Vaginas, neo-vaginas or front
holes, anuses, mouths.
Sexuality. Highlighting the
unmanicured nature of the
gallery walls. Highlighting the
unnecessary preciousness of
the institution.

Repair walls.

66

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Peeled paint and plaster,
Peeling walls, scratched walls.

Violence. Exhaustion.
Confusion, handoffs,
shirking, petulance,
ignorance, gaslighting, stand
offs and gatekeeping.
Reference to Director of
Technical Services + Manager,
Safety, Security & Emergency
Management, Facilities +
General Manager P3, Facilities
+ MFA Studio Technician,
Interdisciplinary. Reference to
The Yellow Wallpaper by
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892.

Repair walls.

Rotten broccoli drawings
(pencil, acrylic, gouache)

Drawings made whilst pausing
for approval for use of the
brocoli, lemon, vinegar scent.
Also as an alternative to having
to make concessions with
signage etc. Broccoli, lemon
and white vinegar - ingredients
for the scent of Bacterial
Vaginosis (determined by
artist). Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity. Rotting, odour,
ageing.

Repair walls.

Deconstructed underwear

Deconstructing sexuality.
Intimate product, touches
genitals, rubs. Protects. Holds
secretions. Holds pads, panty
liner. Fabric should be
complementary to body cotton. Fashion item.
Unravelling - exhaustion.
Being a Karen. Blood stained
underwear.

Not required.

The amount of fluid in the
artist’s body

Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing).
Irregular cycles. Unbalanced
hormones. Fertility and
infertility. Time, Ageing.
Awareness of reproductive
organs in the viewer and artist.
Viewer makes bodily
relationship to material and to
artist. Sweat, sweat patches.
The invisibility of
Menopausal bodies.

Requires signage and constant
supervision. Connections must
be well fastened and reliable to
prevent a flood. Water emptied
at the end of every day and
re-installed.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager.

67

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Water pump

The constant annoyance of
attending to the body,
unsettling. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing). Cycles. Ripples
in life. Sweat, sweat patches.
Long Menstrual Cycle. Long
periods of time without
Menstruating.

Requires signage and constant
supervision. Connections must
be well fastened and reliable to
prevent a flood. Water emptied
at the end of every day and
re-installed.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager.

Latex hose

Veins. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing). Long Menstrual
Cycle. Long periods of time
without Menstruating.
Dangerous material for this
body to touch (allergy).

Requires signage and constant
supervision. Connections must
be well fastened and reliable to
prevent a flood. Water emptied
at the end of every day and
re-installed.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager.

Clothes dryer (unplugged,
muted)

Potential. Cycle, dead body.
Cold. Exhaustion. Embodied
systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity. Steel, phallocentric
labour.
Infertility. Long Menstrual
Cycle. Long periods of time
without Menstruating.

Not required.

Clothes dryer (performing)

See CLOTHES DRYER
RESOURCE DOCUMENT P26

See CLOTHES DRYER
RESOURCE DOCUMENT P26

Faux broccoli

Unable to have the real thing.
Broccoli, lemon and white
vinegar - ingredients for the
scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Not required.

Furniture legs (28”)

Domestic decoration and
design, reference to the shape
of the artist’s body. Change in
body shape, lower stomach
expansion. Bulging, bloating.

Not required.

68

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Faux Lemon

Unable to have the real thing.
Broccoli, lemon and white
vinegar - ingredients for the
scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.
Has skin/peel. Conductive of
electricity.

Not required.

Squashed vinegar bottle
(empty)

Infertility. Backache.
Compression, pressure.
Broccoli, lemon and white
vinegar - ingredients for the
scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity. Explosive in large
quantities. Being a Karen. Add
a little to cook chicken eggs infertility. Plastic manufacturing, phallocentric
labour.

Not required.

Electricity

Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing).
Bursting energy - Being a
Karen. Long Menstrual Cycle.
Long periods of time without
Menstruating.

Must be undertaken in
collaboration with Facilities.

Foley sound effects (safety
pins, buttons, snaps)

Soundtrack to domesticity and
gynocentric labour.

Not required.

Juice of broccoli

Wet. Odour. Broccoli, lemon
and white vinegar - ingredients
for the scent of Bacterial
Vaginosis (determined by
artist). Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Broccoli Juice Recipe:

Infertility. Ageing.
Depression. Death,
existentialism.

Use gloves and dispose of
blowfly after use.

Deceased Greenback blowfly

Boil fresh broccoli in water for 1
hour. Strain the broccoli-water
through cheesecloth, ensuring
no particles of broccoli remain.
Store the strained
broccoli-water in a sealed
container and refrigerate it until
ready to use. The
broccoli-water can be
refrigerated for up to three days
of use.

69

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Wet-look glove

Sexuality. Orgasms that
induce bleeding. Wet/dry.
Sweat, sweat patches.

Not required.

Copper

Conductive of electricity.
Lacework. Domesticity.

Ensure copper does not touch
electrical wires.

Wash cloths

Vaginal dryness, lack of
lubrication. Loss of libido.
Cleans every part of the body,
face, ass, vagina. Intimacy.
Domesticity. Skin. Cleanliness.
Nullify odour. Purity.
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Drying Washcloths in the
clothes dryer:

Cotton sheets (perfect, torn,
dyed, manipulated)

Dirty sheets, bodily traces.
These sheets are a range of the
same thing, not every
experience the same.
Domesticity. Messy,
unorganised, brain fog. Frayed
attention and nerves, bursting.
Night time hot flushes, hot
feet.

Not required.

Vegetable dye

Broccoli, lemon and white
vinegar - ingredients for the
scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist).
Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Not required.

Dirt

Death. Fertile/infertile. Natural
process of the body. Returning
to the earth. Reference to Ana
Mendieta’s practice.

Must be ‘clean’ dirt.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager (This is a
guess and has not been
confirmed).

Clear silicone

Lubricant. Vagisil. Dam walls,
preventing leaks.

Must be removable and leave
no residue. DAP Seal and Peel
removable weather stripping.
36 hour drying time. Must be
leak proof.

The two washcloths have 3
plastic buttons and 3 metal
snaps sewn onto them for
sound effects like real clothes.
They are soaked in the
broccoli-water for around 30
seconds, then thoroughly
hand-wrung and placed in the
dryer to dry. The washcloths
are thoroughly washed after
every dryer cycle.

70

Material

Symptoms
and Relationships

Institutional Requirements
and Contingencies

Acrylic tube

Veins. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause,
time (ageing).

Requires signage and constant
supervision. Connections must
be well fastened and reliable to
prevent a flood. Water emptied
at the end of every day and
re-installed. Contingency plan
required and needs to be
approved by Facilities,
Technical Services, and OHS
Manager.

Clothes peg

Drying tool outside of the
cycle/system. Domesticity.
Familiarity, ambiguity.

Not required.

Pointed, peaked objects.
Objects hung out of reach.
High pitched audio.
Breath.

Sexual pleasure/orgasm that
induces menstration.

Requires scissor lift, work with
Exhibition Technician. Check
audio leakage.

Something cutting through
something else

Tension. Hormone
headaches, bridge of nose

Not required.

Minimalism, secrets, inside
jokes.

Withholding, gatekeeping.
Brain fog. Low energy.

Not required.

Vibration

Hormone imbalances that
effect mood, causing agitation
or emotional responses.
Being a Karen. Exhaustion.

Not required.

Leaks, Oozes, Floods.

Clots. Blood on hands, Blood
in underwear. Extended
bleeding. Low energy.
Bacterial Vaginosis. Dryness.
Wetness. Panty Liners,
tampons and pads. Red,
brown-red, black-red,
pink-red blood.

Requires constant supervision
or signage if unsupervised.
Water mopped up at the end of
every day and re-installed.
Contingency plan required and
needs to be approved by
Facilities, Technical Services,
and OHS Manager.

Site specificity

Architectural interests and
inconsistencies, domestic
references, historical,
site/place/space. Imbue the site
with bodily traces and
Menstrual energy.

Not required.

Bleach

Bleaching of underwear
occuring when pH level is
healthy. Approx 4ml of
discharge

71

Appendix II.
Example of Correspondence With Decision Makers
This correspondence began in the Summer of 2021, with an Institutionally-mandated
completed form for the SOP exhibition which included the proposed use of the active
clothes dryer and the broccoli scent. Correspondence on the same matter had also
occurred before this time and continued after this time.
Please note that portions of this conversation also occurred in person and are not
recorded in this transcript. I have also deleted live links to products and manuals.

Subject: Re: Completed Request for Access Form

Hi ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’
I’m in the studio today too :)
I’ll come say hi at some point :)
Heidi

Hi Heidi,
Sounds good.
I'm in today if you wish to chat.
Otherwise, I'll await for your email.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
Coolio! I'll email ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’ the Materials List soon - I
also have some other questions about the space I'll be installing in for the SOP exhibition
- so I'll hold off until the spaces are confirmed - I think early this week.
Thanks again ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’!
Heidi

Hi Heidi,
Yes, feel free to reach out to ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’ to see if he
can add his thoughts. Though, I’m not sure how much time he can focus on this. In

72

normal circumstances, I imagine he would approach individual projects that are
presented to him and see how he can respond and coordinate the work needed to
support them. I understand and empathise with your position. To know what Installations
you can pursue comfortably with minimal stumbling blocks. I feel that my roll is to support
curriculum. So hopefully I can continue to do this moving forward. That is how I
approached your ‘Materials List’, and thus is why I didn’t answer with a straight Yes and
No. ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’, like myself will do our best to respond
and support your projects, but as I mentioned, we are just one part of the process.
I hope this helps,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’
I assume that was you filling in my Materials List - thank you so much! Loved reading all
the comments and it's all starting to feel a little clearer now. Thank you!
I was just wondering if I should send this to ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’
to approve materials for Exhibition Commons (L2) too - or is it all already in his hands?
Thanks so much,
Heidi

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager,
Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘Exhibitions Coordinator +
Gallery Technician’,
Many thanks for your kind reply and for your understanding in regards to the process.
I will work on your Materials List and offer some clarity with the materials that you'd like to
work with. I've included ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’ in the Michael
O'Brian Exhibition Commons and as well as the Faculty Gallery.
Please keep in mind that my comments are just that, and if and when you decide to
pursue a project through a RFA form that details the scope of the work in its specific
context we can then really get a better understanding of your project proposal and assess
any risks, to you, the viewer, the building and the Community. This way we can then
pursue a safe working plan to your project moving forward.
As per usual, and if it's necessary we will need to continue to collaborate with the
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘Director of
Technical Services’ for guidance in the process.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Program Coordinator, Graduate Programs’,
CC: Heidi
It’s a document that Heidi pursued ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’ to help
her decide on which projects to focus on leading up to the upcoming State of Practice

73

Exhibition. If she want to share it with Maddy she’s welcome to. In the meantime she can
reach out to and confirm his thoughts on her Materials list.
I did my best to respond to each section, but my understanding is that once Heidi submits
an RFA form, we can truly understand the scope of the work. She at least knows some of
the parameters from my point of view that are concerns in regards to challenges I
exhibiting and performance.
I am just the first step.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi Heidi, ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
CC: Heidi
Has Matty Flader been looped into this? He is helping with organizing the exhibition
layout.
Thanks,
‘Program Coordinator, Graduate Programs’

Hi All,
CC: ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’
and ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘General
Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Scheduling Coordinator, Community + External Bookings’
and ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’ and ‘Technical Services Coordinator’ and ‘Studio
Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and ‘Program Coordinator, Graduate Programs’,
Thank you so much for all of your work on this installation - I really appreciate it.
At this stage, I'm needing to focus on making a work that I can present as part of the MFA
State of Practice Exhibition (in the Exhibition Commons - L2) so I really appreciate the
clarity on whether this clothes dryer can function in that space or not. I understand now
that its not going to work and I'll work towards the clothes dryer work being tested in a
space that allows for venting later in the Fall semester. So having said that, it might make
more sense to get back to you ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management,
Facilities’ with the details on how much scent and how long the dyer would rotate, closer
to the time and when I have the room specifications/booking.
In the meantime, I'll put a work together from approved materials from my Materials List
that ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ recently sent around. I'm sure we'll be emailing
about that in a separate stream of emails :)
Thanks so much to everyone for sticking with this. Even though I can't present the clothes
dryer work for the exhibition, I appreciate the work that went into the to and fro-ing so
much.
Thanks again,
Heidi

74

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’
and ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘General
Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Scheduling Coordinator, Community + External Bookings’
and ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’ and ‘Technical Services Coordinator’ and ‘Program
Coordinator, Graduate Programs’,
Thanks for this.
To get a more fulsome response for your needs, and to get more eyes on deck, I will
include the following parties:
1. Technical Services Team
2. Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician
3. Director of Technical Services
4. Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’
5. General Manager P3, Facilities
6. Scheduling Coordinator, Community + External Bookings
I have also included ‘Exhibitions Coordinator + Gallery Technician’ who can speak more
directly to the Michael O'Brian Exhibition Commons. I have been told that they are
developing an ECU Exhibitions Guidebook that will address the various concerns, but
again, the nature of Art and the spirit of creativity will continuously challenge our spaces
and its always to good to have flexibility in options that can best be supported by our
institution.
I understand that it would make sense in organizing such a list of Materials and Projects
to the ECU Spaces given the type of practice that you have, this quite an interesting
range of potential work that you have, I will do my best to offer support to it by offering
my feedback within the MFA Gallery as well as the Classroom with Extraction section. As
per usual, if you wish to pursue any of these projects with the feedback given by us,
please fill out the Request for Access Form, to the best of your ability include any
support details, drawings, diagrams, measurements to let us know the entire scope,
visual look, and context the of installation.
Warm regards and once again, thanks for your patience,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
Thanks so much for the chat this morning! Feeling much clearer - thank you!
Here's the materials list I was telling you about. It's completely editable. Please let me
know if you think it needs any changes or additions: Materials List (link removed)
Thanks again!
Heidi
P.S Here's the Instagram for Yard Space Gallery: (link removed)

CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager,
Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘Studio Technician,
Interdisciplinary’ and Heidi,
To clarify, the other go/no-go element to this project is keeping it in the paint studio. As
discussed previously, the dryer needs to be installed per manufacturer specifications

75

which means having ducting that vents outside. The window opening in the studio will
allow for this. That room also has its own dedicated exhaust ventilation should there be
any nuisance smells produced. Unfortunately, there is no way to install dryer exhaust nor
is there dedicated exhaust vent in the Exhibition Commons on the 2nd floor.
Respectfully,
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’

‘Director of Technical Services’,
CC: ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and Facilities’ and ‘Studio Technician,
Interdisciplinary’ and Heidi
As I discussed with ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ yesterday, the go/no-go is very
subjective. I wish there was a way for me to quantify this somehow but it comes down
primarily to the amount of nuisance odour this project - which is subjective. The concern
is whether this project will produce enough odour to affect facility systems (HVAC
systems, fire safety systems) and if it will disrupt people in adjacent spaces.
Acetic acid (produced by boiling/evaporating vinegar) has to be quite concentrated in
order to be truly hazardous - but it can still be a nuisance in lower concentrations. Also,
acetic acid is corrosive so this project will likely damage or destroy the dryer depending
on how often it will run.
I wish I could provide clear parameters to work within but given the unusual nature of this
project this is the best I can do. I will leave it to Heidi do decide on the course of action
and I will do my best to support the success of he project.
Respectfully,
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’

‘General Manager P3, Facilities’/‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management,
Facilities’,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and Facilities’
and ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and Heidi,
As I noted earlier, it would be helpful to know what the no-or-go point would be.
As Heidi will be purchasing used equipment, committing to the test means committing to
the equipment.
I imagine it would be helpful for their process to understand the risk of this project moving
forward or not.
Best,
‘Director of Technical Services’

Hi everyone,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager,
Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘Studio Technician,
Interdisciplinary’ and Heidi,

76

Heidi, I apologize for leaving you hanging. I misunderstood the last correspondence and I
thought we were preparing for a “test run”. If I remember correctly, the Inglis manual I
found wasn’t for that exact model but it looked identical so the electrical and ventilation
requirements should be the same. In the mean time, you’re welcome to continue
preparations for your project. The main focus on the test is to get a sense of the potential
disruption the smell and noise the project will create. Could you let me know specifically
the sequence that you’re planning, what all the substances are and the amounts?
Thanks kindly,
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager,
Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’,
Thanks for your reply. I suspected that you were waiting. I’ll forward this to ‘General
Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management,
Facilities’ in hopes for some answers.
Hi ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency
Management, Facilities’,
I hope this reaches you well.
If I may ask,
What’s your current status in regards on Heidi’s project proposal.
Please refer to her most recent email that I am including.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager,
Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’,
Thanks for following up.
My last communications were an email to ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency
Management, Facilities’ asking if the new second hand dryer I've supplied details for
would be ok without a manual - just with the installation instructions which I attached an
image of (these were located on a sticker on the back on the machine). I haven't heard
anything on that yet.
In the meantime, the sale of the original second hand dryer (Inglis E089000) I was
interested in, fell through and it is now available again. ‘Manager, Safety, Security &
Emergency Management, Facilities’ did approve that one in theory and in his email said
he had found an online manual - I can't locate one though.
On my end, both potential second hand dryers are manual-less, without any hope of
finding them. Does this officially mean they're out? No manual, no go?
In terms of 'go-ing' or 'no-ing', I'm ready to 'go' :) Just waiting for the the final answers.
Thanks,
Heidi

77

Hi All,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager,
Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and Heidi,
I hope this reaches everyone well. Just making sure nobody is left hanging.
I'm just inquiring to see if there is clarity from this point onward to see if we are moving
towards the 'Test-run' the impact of Heidi's performance.
This should give a clearer idea on the 'broccoli and vinegar experience' will have in a
contained space. And thus, a more careful assessment can be made on the project.
At this point, my understanding is that, once Heidi has supplied ‘Manager, Safety,
Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ with the manual for the Dryer that she has
been able to purchase, "...as to ensure the dryer is installed per manufactures direction."
If all 't's' are crossed and 'i's' are dotted, as ‘Director of Technical Services’ had inquired,
"if there aren't other contingent steps for assessment of this project left standing, aside
from confirmation of CSA Certification."
All we are awaiting now is if Heidi has decided to 'go' or 'no' at this point. I hope this
doesn't confused matters more than necessary, but I hope we are at where we are
needed at this point.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Studio
Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
I don't have a manual for the dryer - I'm buying it second-hand and the current owner
doesn't have the manual. I do have some installation instructions which were on a sticker
on the machine - image is attached. I also found this website that has manuals for similar
machines, but not the exact one: (link removed)
My goal at the moment is to install this in the L2 exhibition commons for the upcoming
MFA State of Practice Exhibition in late Aug/early Sept, but happy for the test to place in
any location deemed appropriate.
Please let me know I can provide any further details.
Thanks,
Heidi

CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Studio
Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
Good morning all,
Apologies for the delay in my response. Heidi, could you please provide a manual for this
dryer model? The next step will be to ensure the dryer is installed per manufacturer’s
directions. Has a specific location been selected for this installation? Once we’re certain
that the dryer can be installed in a location that accommodates the installation
requirements then we can schedule a test run to see what impact, if any, this may have
on adjacent rooms, shops.
Respectfully,
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’

78

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘Director of
Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’,
Thanks for this.
Someone, should respond to you shortly in regards to your inquiry.
I believe as mentioned in our group email, ‘Director of Technical Services’ has reached
out to ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’. in regards to
'other' contingent steps for the assessment of this project (aside from confirmation of
CSA certification).
We are just awaiting for a response from ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency
Management, Facilities’.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

CC: ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’ and
‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency
Management, Facilities’,
Hi All,
Just updating that the second-hand clothes dryer I wanted to buy and provided details for,
has since sold to somebody else. I have been able to find another second-hand clothes
dryer that fits the criteria though. I've attached 2 images of the machine (one has the
model number and the CSA certification).
Here's the details:
Brand: Kenmore
Model Number: 110.C89722990
Voltage: 120V
CSA Cert: Yes
Thank you so much,
Heidi

CC: ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’ and
‘General Manager P3, Facilities’,
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’,
Can you confirm that there aren’t other contingent steps for the assessment of this
project (aside from confirmation of CSA certification)?
Heidi will be procuring used equipment, their no-or-go will be upon purchase so it will be
imperative to have all steps outlined if further contingencies await.
Best,
‘Director of Technical Services’

79

Heidi
CC: ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’ and
‘General Manager P3, Facilities’,
Right! My mistake. My recommendations are the same minus the water source and
containment. Heidi, please let us know what dryer you end up acquiring for this project
and please include a photo of the placard with the CSA logo.
Thanks and have a great weekend,
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’,

Hi All,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’,
Thanks ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and thanks to
you too ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’.
This is correct. I'm just wanting to use one of the three listed clothes dryers, not a washer.
Thank you,
Heidi

Hi ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’,
Thanks for your feedback and assistance in this.
I think Heidi is in pursuit of a clothes dryer, not a washer, so I‘m in belief to assume we
don’t need a water source. Is that correct Heidi?
Kind regards,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Dear ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and Heidi,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’,
I found a manual for the Inglis washer (links removed)but I can’t seem to find one for the
Bluelifestyle washer. I believe all these machines would have to be CSA approved in
order to be sold in Canada, but please ensure they are certified by checking the placard.
The manuals don’t note the CSA approval as I’m assuming they’re intended for a global
audience. The instructions for installation in the manuals available are pretty
comprehensive. Key requirements are that the washer needs a water source and a 120v,
60Hz, AC-only, grounded power source. I advise having some sort of containment around

80

the machine to avoid damage to the facility something that can be placed under the
machine and have enough capacity to hold a full load’s worth of water.
I hope that’s helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can help with
facilitating this project.
Respectfully,
‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘Director of
Technical Services’ and ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Studio Technician,
Interdisciplinary’,
Thanks for this.
I will defer to Andy in regards to Facilities needs and requirements, that they are met and
to
know what next steps are.
‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’

Hi ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’,
CC: ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘Director of
Technical Services’ and Heidi,
Heidi has sourced out some clothes dryers. Information included for your reference in
email below as well as images attached.
Kind regards,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hello ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’!
CC: ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’,
I have some make and model numbers to share for some dryers. My preference is still for
the 2nd hand clothes dryer - it's more affordable, less damaging to the environment than
buying something new and I prefer the aesthetics.
Please see the table below for model numbers and link (links removed) and also find the
corresponding attached images.
(over page)

81

Image Number and Brand

Model Number

Voltage

1. & 2. Inglis (2nd hand) - Vented

E089000

115V

3. Panda - Vented

PAN40SF

120V

4. BlueLifeStyle - Vented

BLS-PDR-366

110V

Thanks so much,
Heidi

Thanks ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’!
CC: ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’,
Hope all is well with you also :)
I have a few brand-new dryers saved (which I can easily get specs for), but my
preference is for a 2nd hand dryer - it's cheaper and I prefer the aesthetics. I'm just
waiting for a few people to get back to me with model numbers, then I'll do some
research for the specs.
I'll get back to you as soon as I have more details.
Thank you!
Heidi

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’,
I hope this reaches you well.
We're almost there.��
*Once you've found your 110V Vented Clothes Drier please forward the MAKE and
MODEL NUMBER first, then we can do a feasibility check before the test.
Facilities will need to confirm the installation is code compliant so will still need the model
specific manufactures installation instructions for reference
This way you you're not spending money for no reason.
Thanks for your patience. If you have further questions feel free to ask.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ ,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’,
Thanks so much for your support - I really appreciate it!

82

I'm on the hunt for a 110V, vented clothes dryer just in case the test can take place - but I
wont purchase one until I know for sure.
Thanks again,
Heidi

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’ and ‘General
Manager P3, Facilities’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘Shop Technologies
Coordinator’,
Always nice speaking with you today.
I have reached out to ‘Manager, Safety, Security & Emergency Management, Facilities’
and the ‘General Manager P3, Facilities’ to see if we can do a test on site if you're able to
locate a used 110v vented dryer. If it's a go we can try it out in one of the available rooms
with a window and ventilation and invite everyone to experience the drying process of
clothes cooked broccoli and vinegar water.
I will keep you posted.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘AVP Research + Dean, Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies’ and ‘Supervisor +
Assistant Professor, Photography, Audain Faculty of Art’ and ‘Director of Technical
Services’ and ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’,
I hope this reaches you well.
We've been working to see how we can support your project and we've hit some
challenges.
1. Power
2. Ventilation
There isn't a 220V power source in the MOEC that can support a standard 240V Clothes
Dryer. So there isn't a easy way to adapt a power source to a conventional dryer. With
normal conventional clothes dryers there's usually a standard way of venting them that
goes outside.
With our exhibition spaces in MOEC, there isn't a practical space to venting a clothes
dryer, and from my understanding, the work is performative in it's nature, you want the
work to have that smell of Vinegar and Broccoli and that one of the main elements of the
work is the Smell.
Facilities has expressed concerns regarding the smell and having it affect the entire ECU
Community that would be experiencing the work within building vicinity.
To ask the obvious: Would having your work situated in the patio be an option? I believe it
may not be ideal.
Things smell and within normal exhibition circumstances, an oil painting will smell like oil
paint, a sculpture that uses natural fibers, such as hides, or furs, will give off a scent.
What we seem to be dealing with is an unknown element for those who may need to
know.
I am wondering if we need to consider the smell and somehow doing a test for Facilities.

83

That saying you might be able to source out a 110V Portable Clothes Dryer, but issues of
ventilation are still an issue. You would need to find a condensing dryer that is ventless.
(link removed)
I'm wondering if it worth it for you to rent one of these 110V vent-less/Condensing dryers
and bring it to the university to do a test run, in one of the vented classrooms?
I would also hope that whatever you are doing with it, it can still be returned without
damage.
*Just a question: in order for everyone to understand the scope of the work, what is the
duration of the drying process within your performance.
I have included the Dean of Graduate Studies and your Faculty Supervisor for their
reference.
If you want to discuss further I'd be happy to continue this conversation, but I am also
happy for those included in this email to offer their expertise, consideration and thoughts
on this subject.
Best,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

Hi ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’,
Thanks so much for your email. In answer to your question, the installation I envision is
really simple. It is just the clothes dryer in a space with nothing else around it. In an ideal
scenario, the dryer is plugged into the wall outlet and is occasionally drying items and
venting into the open space of the exhibition commons.
I have no fixed preference for its location in the exhibition commons. My dream scenario
would be for it to have lots of space around it, but being that it is a group exhibition and
that it perhaps requires particular electrical outlets or venting, I'm definitely flexible on
location.
Yes, definitely the dryer needs to be in the space for the installation to be effective. The
intent is that the scent of the clothes drying seeps out into the air - like it does at home.
Please let me know if I can provide further details.
Thanks so much,
Heidi

Hi Heidi,
CC: ‘Director of Technical Services’ and ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’,
Thanks for forwarding your Request for Access to us. As per ‘Shop Technologies
Coordinator’s’ response he will be inquiring further. I’m the meantime, would you have a
detailed sketch on hand on how you envision the
installation with all its visual and physical components
Plus, apologies for the inquiry, but Is it safe to assume that you require that a dryer be
within the actual installation space, yes?
Kind regards,
‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’

84

Hi ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’,
CC: ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’,
Thanks so much for your email.
And thank you so much for your feedback on the soaking wet clothes transitioning to
dryer situation - I will definitely work on a solution to that.
I look forward to hearing more from you - thanks so much helping me with this.
Heidi

Hello Heidi,
CC: ‘Studio Technician, Interdisciplinary’ and ‘Director of Technical Services’,
Thanks for submitting your request for access.
I will review your technical requirements in further detail and explore whether your
preferred option is possible, but my first impressions is that we will not be able to provide
240 volts power outlet in any of the exhibition commons, and that it will not be possible to
hook up a drier to the existing ventilation system.
I think it is prudent that you source a ventless cloths dryer that can run on 110V.
We can explore where there are any opening windows in which an exhaust hose can be
direct outside, but will need to confirm with facilities that this is an acceptable solution.
An additional concerns would be how much water would remain in the cloths prior to
putting them into the dryer. Cloths would be best put through a spin cycle in a
conventional washing machine or vigorously hand wrung before putting them into the
dryer.
I will make further inquiries but I wanted to get back to you with my initial thoughts.
best
‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’

Hello ‘Shop Technologies Coordinator’!
Please find attached a request for access form related to the upcoming MFA State of
Practice Exhibition (SOP).
Please let me know if I can provide any further information or details.
Thank you so much for your help,
Heidi

-

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Appendix III.

curriculum + exhibition

Project Safety Planning
Name: Heidi Holmes

ECU ID: 106432

Faculty Name: Supervisor Alla Gadassick
Course: MFA Thesis Exhibition
Describe Your Project. Scale, volume, materials, equipment, processes, key dates
Location: Sculpture Gallery, MOEC.
Installing from March 22nd and de-installation completed by end of day, April 6th.
Description of PSP related materials in project:
Clothes Dryer: A clothes dryer dries two washcloths that have been soaked with broccoli-water and
sewn with buttons.
Scent: The scent in the space is distributed by the clothes dryer exhaust. Scent is also distributed by
placement of broccoli-water in some of the water filled containers.
Water: On the floor of the space is a collection of 40 containers of water in various sizes. Some of the
water in the containers is gently agitated with a small water pump. Two containers of water are gently
transferring water into each other with small water pumps and acrylic hoses. Directly on the floor are
several small puddles of water. These small puddles are rimmed with silicone.
Outline Potential Risks + Hazards. Use PRA checklist for guidance
Clothes Dryer: Timer fail, overheating of washcloths, build up of broccoli on cloths, waterlogging,
mould, mildew.
Scent: Allergy, confusion of source.
Water: Slipping, flooding, mould.
Outline Potential Mitigation Strategy for Risk. Consult technicians, faculty or OH&S for guidance
Clothes Dryer:
The clothes dryer is an 115v electric Inglis model #E089000 with CSA certifications on the machine. As
the dryer is vintage (approx 1990), I do not have an instruction manual and cannot locate emission
details for this specific model.
●

The clothes dryer will include a timer installed at power source to ensure the dryer does exceed
its internal timer.

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●

●
●

In my research into electric clothes dryer emissions, I have found that electric dryers do not
exhaust carbon monoxide fumes, however they do emit moisture which can result in mould or
mildew if used continuously without sufficient space. The clothes dryer will be limited to 6
scheduled sessions per day: 9am-10am, 10:30am-11:30am, 11:45am-12:45pm, 1pm-2pm,
3pm-4pm, 5pm-6pm. This will prevent a build up of heat and allow existing ventilation systems
to prevent mould or mildew.
The washcloths will be freshly laundered for each clothes dryer cycle to prevent a build up of
broccoli.
After wringing out two cotton washcloths, two teaspoons of broccoli water remain (or less).

Scent:
Broccoli-Water Recipe:
Boil fresh broccoli in water for 1 hour. Strain the broccoli-water through cheesecloth, ensuring no
particles of broccoli remain. Store the strained broccoli-water in a sealed container and refrigerate until
ready to use. The broccoli-water can be safely refrigerated for up to three days of use.
●

Signage will be in place to alert the viewer to the source of the scent and will also be listed in
the materials section of the artwork label.

Water:
●
●
●
●

Signage will be in place to alert the viewer to the use of water in the work and will also be listed
in the materials section of the artwork label.
Electrical water pumps will be purchased new and will have instructions and specifications
available.
Water levels, spills and leaks will be checked 6 times a day at the aforementioned clothes dryer
cycle times.
Floor puddles rimmed with silicone, will have thick dam walls, cured well advance of the
distribution of water and will be pre-checked for spills and leaks. These puddles will be soaked
up at the end of every day and replenished every morning.

Please see post-meeting email correspondence over the following pages.

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Appendix IV.

Re: Installation Safety Planning

Just for clarity, Please note that vaseline must not be applied directly to the glazing or any
part of the glazing system, window mullions gaskets etc. This will affect our warranty for
these materials and put the university at financial risk. Please consider how else you can
achieve your desired effect.
General Manager P3, Facilities

General Manager P3, Facilities,
Can you clarify? If I'm not mistaken, I believe the Vaseline is intended to go on the glass
window panes, as has been done in Heidi's September "State of Practice" exhibition and
in other exhibitions in the Sculpture Gallery.
I suspect that Emily Carr building users are allowed to touch glass with other materials?
If not, I regret to say that the warranty has been compromised already by numerous hand
prints, window cleaning supplies, and artistic interventions over the years.
Best,
Supervisor + Associate Professor, Media History + Theory

Heidi I see on your plan that you intend to use "vaseline" at the highlighted areas.
Please note that vaseline must not be applied directly to the glazing or any part of the
glazing system, window mullions gaskets etc. This will affect our warranty for these
materials and put the university at financial risk. Please consider how else you can
achieve your desired effect.
Thanks
General Manager P3, Facilities

Hi All!
Hope you all had some lovely, restful weekend time :)
I've been through the details of the pumps I currently have in my possession and have
attached a table with the corresponding details.
I have also attached a floor plan of the electrical outlets and the proposed positions of my
electrical components. Please excuse my rough drawing :) I'm very happy to move things
around if it is deemed the electrical load is too great.

88

I'm also anticipating that when I'm installing, things might move a little from the proposed
positions in this drawing.
Please let me know if this is enough information or if anything is not suitable.
Thanks so much,
Heidi

Hi All,
Thanks for this William, I'll get onto providing the information as soon as possible.
And thank you Andy, I'll be sure to send over the details of the pumps as soon as
possible. Hopefully they'll be suitable, but if not I'll plan for something else.
I'll also just add that I also made one other note from the meeting:
- Water cannot be spilled directly on the floor as the surface is not waterproof. The
proposed, silicone-rimmed puddles are to be installed with a protective layer (like
acetate) between the concrete floor and the water.
Thanks again!
Heidi

Please note that there are existing GFCI outlets in the area that can be used for the water
pumps
Thanks
General Manager P3, Facilities

All,
Just wanted to follow up with the group as the flow of conversation was technologically
stilted.
We are all in agreement to move forward with the installation as proposed. We agreed to
the following additional pre-installation steps when time allows:
(Heidi) to send a specification for the pump to be installed.
(Heidi) to provide a rough layout of electrical equipment for the space, noting that this
may change as part of installation.
(Andy) to review electrical capacity in the area compared to rough layout and confirm
suitability of plugs etc.
During installation:
(all) test run drying process at preferred frequency in the exhibition space to confirm
proposed schedule of performance (scheduling TBC).
(All) to review any concerns.
Best,
Director of Technical Services

89

Appendix V.

In this body of work, the symptoms of Menopause become material
Material

Symptoms and Rationale

Artist’s height

Viewer makes bodily relationship to material and
to artist. The invisibility of Menopausal bodies.

Artist’s hair

Thinning hair, hair growing where it didn’t before.
The grotesque feeling of finding someone else’s
hair on/in your body. Pubic regions. Sexuality.

Bleach

PH bleaching in underwear when PH levels are
healthy. Cleaning, corrosive, dangerous.

Blowfly

Infertility. Ageing. Depression. Death,
existentialism.

Broccoli

Broccoli, lemon and white vinegar - ingredients for
the scent of Bacterial Vaginosis (determined by
artist). Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity.

Broccoli juice

Wet. Odour. Broccoli, lemon and white vinegar ingredients for the scent of Bacterial Vaginosis
(determined by artist). Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity.

Clothes Dryer

See page 26

Clothes Dryer sounds

The constant annoyance of attending to the body,
unsettling. Exhaustion. Being a Karen. Cycles.
Gynocentric labour. Domesticity. Familiarity,
ambiguity. Long Menstrual Cycle. Long periods of
time without Menstruating.

Cooking pots

Cycle, heat pumping like a body. Hot flush, hot,
burning feet. Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and menopause, time
(ageing). Leaky. Flooding, errant clots.
Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity. Steam, foggy.
Boiling water, agitation. Long Menstrual Cycle.
Long periods of time without Menstruating.

Diamante flower

Hemorrhoids. Pegged like a cute buthole. Youth.
Sexuality.

Electrical cord

Embodied systems (digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause, time (ageing).

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Material

Symptoms and Rationale

Electricity

Embodied systems (digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause, time (ageing).
Bursting energy - Being a Karen. Long Menstrual
Cycle. Long periods of time without Menstruating.

Fabric

The kinds of things that are handed from
generation to generation. Gynocentric and
domestic care. Maternal care. The generational
cycling of knowledge and upkeep.

Foley sound effects (safety pins, buttons, snaps)

Soundtrack to domesticity and gynocentric labour.

Glasses, bowls, containers

Domestic, familiar, able to hold, caress, provide.
Capitalism. Domestic decoration.

Goat milk soap

Sensitive skin, skin changes. Hives. Cleanliness.
Nullify odour. Sweat, sweat patches. Purity.

Horse hair

Premarin - pregnant horse urine used in
hormones. Wigs, synthetic hair to replace human
hair.

KY lubricant (sensitive)

At the centre of Menopause is a dry vagina.

Found holes

Vaginas, neo-vaginas or front holes, anuses,
mouths. Sexuality. Highlighting the unmanicured
nature of the gallery walls. Highlighting the
unnecessary preciousness of the institution.

Male electrical plugs

Embodied systems (digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause, time (ageing).
Phallocentric energy. Sexuality. Fucking. Infertility.

Measurement of fluid in the artist’s body

Embodied systems (digestive, reproductive),
menstruation and menopause, time (ageing).
Irregular cycles. Unbalanced hormones. Fertility
and infertility. Time, Ageing. Awareness of
reproductive organs in the viewer and artist.
Viewer makes bodily relationship to material and
to artist. Sweat, sweat patches. The invisibility of
Menopausal bodies.

Measurement of blood from the artist’s last
menstrual cycle

Blood stained underwear. Embodied systems
(digestive, reproductive), menstruation and
menopause, time (ageing). Irregular cycles.
Unbalanced hormones. Fertility and infertility.
Time, Ageing. Awareness of reproductive organs
in the viewer and artist. Viewer makes bodily
relationship to material and to artist. The invisibility
of Menopausal bodies. Long Menstrual Cycle.
Long periods of time without Menstruating.

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Material

Symptoms and Rationale

Measurement of healthy pH vaginal discharge
(and underwear bleaching),

The secret recipe to the superpower.

Monolithic Scale

Ensures that Menopause lives here. Phallic.

Minimalism, secrets, inside jokes.

Withholding, gatekeeping. Brain fog. Low energy.

Pegs

Domestic duties.

Sheets (perfect, torn, dyed, manipulated,
overlapping, layered, shredded, crinkled, frayed
and steamed)

Dirty sheets, bodily traces. These sheets are a
range of the same thing, not every experience the
same. Domesticity. Messy, unorganised, brain fog.
Frayed attention and nerves, bursting. Night time
hot flushes, hot feet.

Silicone

Lubricant. Vagisil. Dam walls, preventing leaks.

St John's wort

Taken to ease the symptoms of Menopause.

Something cutting through something else

Tension. Hormone headaches, bridge of nose

Towel

Vaginal dryness, lack of lubrication. Loss of libido.
Dries every part of the body, face, ass, vagina.
Intimacy. Domesticity.

Towel rack

Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity.

Trolley

To move and cycle like a body. To make the dryer
the same height as me.

Underwear

Must be white. Dyed with tSt John’s wort. A fairly
universal and recognizable material. Rolled down
the body to show they’ve been worn. Infected with
bodily juices.

Washing line

Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity.

Washcloths

Vaginal dryness, lack of lubrication. Loss of libido.
Cleans every part of the body, face, ass, vagina.
Intimacy. Domesticity. Skin. Cleanliness. Nullify
odour. Purity. Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity.

Water

Leaky. Flooding, errant clots. Sweat, sweat
patches.

Water pump

The constant annoyance of attending to the body,
unsettling. Embodied systems (digestive,
reproductive), menstruation and menopause, time
(ageing). Cycles. Ripples in life. Sweat, sweat
patches. Long Menstrual Cycle. Long periods of
time without Menstruating.

White walls, pastel palette

Institutional, amenable, friendly, gentle. Feminine.

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Material

Symptoms and Rationale

Vagisil PH Balance branding

Feminine branding. Product used to counter
effects of PH imbalance, which can cause
Bacterial Vaginosis, discomfort, odour.

Vaseline

Softening the lens, softening age. Lubricant to
move dry parts. Derived from oil (phallocentric
labour). Sticky, oozy. Brain fog.

Vegetable dye

Broccoli, lemon and white vinegar - ingredients for
the scent of Bacterial Vaginosis (determined by
artist). Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity.

Vibration

Hormone imbalances that effect mood, causing
agitation or emotional responses. Being a Karen.
Exhaustion.

White vinegar

Broccoli, lemon and white vinegar - ingredients for
the scent of Bacterial Vaginosis (determined by
artist). Domesticity. Familiarity, ambiguity.
Explosive in large quantities. Add a little to cook
chicken eggs - infertility.

93

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