Female Genitalia Mutilation remains to be a contemporary issue in the modern world. While a clinic has opened in London to assist babies to young ladies aged up to 18 by providing both medical and psychological treatment, it is still not enough as those effected by FGM are also women above the age limit.
Another step in this direction is a Northwestern Access to Health Project which will be piloted in Douentza (Mali), focusing primarily on “the cutters”. What I have found most interesting about this Health Project is that for the women labelled as “cutters”, FGM is merely a form of income. From the article linked above (this paragraph) I quote:
In interviews conducted last year by a women’s advocate in Douentza, Laya Ongoiba, the cutters said they would cease performing the excisions if they had an alternative source of income. One woman reported that she would like a freezer to sell cold drinks in the market; another woman said she would buy several goats to raise for meat and milk.
Having already read plenty about how women and girls suffer both physically and psychologically from the procedures of FGM, I find it fascinating to now see it from the other side of the knife. I will be exploring the use of two materials new to me: glass and aluminium.
To begin my first piece I purchased a plastic doll, meat, and yarn. I then placed the doll onto the meat and cut around it.
To mimic the type of stitching used within FGM I sewed the meat around the doll’s legs. It was left in freezer overnight to be ready for investment casting the next day.
To create the mould for my glass investment casting I flattened out a piece of clay to serve as a base and place object on the base, then built up the clay around the sides to create the clay structure and shape the relief. A secure wooden structure was build around the clay structure.
After this I poured in the mixture of water, plaster, and sand. Then left it to set for about half an hour. (1/2 water, 1/4 plaster, then mix, 1/4 sand, mix)
Once it had set, the wooden structure was taken apart and the clay was carved out along with the object inside to reveal the mould to melt glass in.
To create my relief I laid out two coca-cola bottle ready to be heated within the kiln.
After being heated slowly to 1400 degrees in the kiln and cooled my glass relief came out like this. It was very easy to pick up out the mould, unlike those who had crushed the glass to fill their moulds.
I was sad that a lot of the detail from the texture had been lost in the process and I believe that would be the section that made people realise what has been used originally. However I was still happy with the general shape of the relief and the appearance which the labels had left on the glass. To further this piece I would like to add brown glass to the inside to give the effect of skin colour.
To begin this casting the exact same steps are followed as the first investment casting, except this time a layer of plastic is used to cover the object.
This time a mixture of sand and… is added until the structure is full.
The mixture was then compressed with… until I was unable to press into the surface. As in the previous casting the wooden structure is removed. This time I added more… to any softer parts around the sides.
I carefully turned over the investing casting and removed clay and object to reveal the mould for the aluminium to be poured into.
After pouring the aluminium, the metal was left to cool and set overnight and when I returned in the morning the heat of the metal had broken my mould in two, which both astounded me and made it easy for me to retrieve the aluminium relief.
The relief came out covered in burnt sand which I washed off by using warm water and wire brush.
I chose not to smooth the surface of the piece and I wanted the texture to be applicable to FGM. It is a rough, dangerous procedure with sharp objects. To colour the surface I may add red to the section where the label had been to reinforce what the object is.
What I appreciate most about the connection between these two pieces in this presentation is that the shadow appears to be a human figure hunched over something, which I believe is the “cutter” hunched over their patient.
My Fine Art Practice (W101) 