Project 3: Refined Proposal

Challenging The Menopause Taboo

Aim

The Menopause is 'given a taboo status partly due to the myths, confusion and embarrassment on the subject' (1). This statement from The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development was made last year. It highlights, as a society, we have still a long way to catch up with discussions about the menopause.

My proposal is to consider, review and analyse this statement.  I will then create a body of work which will draw awareness and discussion on the topic of the menopause. My aim is to help to breakdown the barriers of inhibition and confusion. The subject is close to my heart not only for myself and my friends but to see how it has effected older members of my family in the past.

Brief

Researching for my proposal, I realised that the subject of the menopause is huge, so I looked at many ways of approaching the topic. I felt the best way was to break it down in to sections and particularly focus on what had happened to myself.

In  November 2016 it was reported that around a quarter of women going through the menopause considered leaving their jobs (2).  Based on the symptoms I was having and the fog in my brain I too had these thoughts. I tried to hide how I was feeling and how tired I was from myself, my husband, my friends and my work colleagues, but this just added to my exhaustion, the downward spiral had begun.

In the proposal I will document my own personal journey over eight years, showing my ups as well as my downs with the aim to engage the viewer in to thought. The aim is to instigate discussion and communication through showing selected emotions, feelings and symptoms I was going through during that time.

From looking in to my own journey I am able to discuss what I know about and have learnt about the menopause from a personal perspective. However this will not be a singular narrative. Whilst the heart of the artwork is my journey, I will also enlist others' views and learnings from a variety of sources: groups and individuals.

Outcomes

The outcomes of the proposal will be a body of work to promote communication through art to look at a subject, which in my opinion is not discussed enough.

I will create sketchbooks showing the ideas and paths I have been developing and refining on the topic. These will include sketches and paintings along with textile samples. Within the sketchbooks there will be a chronological approach to show that whilst there are downsides of the menopause process there are also positive outcomes. It is important that these are discussed and visualised as well.

There will be an honest and open approach with my work, building on the diary format in my sketchbooks and signpost the big events in my life. The personal aspect of the work will be accessible to all in order to achieve full engagement.

By making the project a personal journey there will be a narrative to the pieces which will also show the worst and the best times of the journey. I will gain feedback from others on how relevant they feel the pieces are and what they may be saying to them.

The research on taboos I am working on for my Critical Review will overlap in my proposal work and how other artists have tackled other taboos and examined their own personal feelings in their work. Grayson Perry and Cas Holmes were a great influence to me on how to look further in to the subject matter and not be afraid of my own thoughts and feelings.

Within the full body of the proposal will be mini-projects that will delve in to greater detail than the sketchbook material. These mini projects will allow for further exploration more rigorously.

Infra red body imaging of a hot flush

One of the smaller projects will focus on infra-red heat mapping in the body and how it looks when having a hot flush or night sweats. I will be focusing where the heat is through intense colour. Colours for the colder areas will be blues and greens and the heated areas will go from yellow to bright red. The colours will show scale and positioning of what was and is happening to a woman's body when the flush occurs.

Felt is a medium I want to continue to experiment with, the warmth of the wool lends itself to create heat and softness which is important when looking at recreating hot flushes graphically. I am going to produced wet felted pictures with needle felt and paint, the latter will allow me to create extra drama within the artwork.

My choice of material will be relevant to the subject matter, warmth materials will combine with lighter cotton, silk and muslin to show the build up of heat and its release in the menopause.  The textures created from both new and recycled materials will also represent the emotions and feelings of symptoms. The  light flimsy muslin which can fray at the seams will contrast to the solidity of cord or boiled wool.

Looking at creating emotion in portraiture from images
in my scrapbook

Another mini project will consider monochromatic line images in stitch to look at emotions in the pre-menopause stage. Building on rough line sketches from the sketchbook/diary idea and then taking them further with the use of stitch and textures. These will then be stitched on to a collage of fabrics and textures, looking at what textures are suitable for the emotion I am trying to create on the page.
The emphasis will be on the feelings of the person and show expressions of anxiety and depression amongst other emotions.

Building from the range of ideas, I will work up large scale exhibition pieces to create a strong impact. I plan to create several pieces of multimedia artwork to show my journey through the menopause, questioning how I felt and reacted to what was happening to me from a physical perspective but also mentally.

The idea of the journey through the menopause is on trend with celebrity blogs, podcasts and tv programmes now starting to feature the menopause as subject matter. Whilst still rather a niche topic for mainstream media, I believe that there is starting to be an understanding that communication on this subject is vital to more forward as a society.

I want to highlight the menopausal symptoms visually for people to look analyse at their own pace within a gallery space. Too often media programmes are sound bites but my work will be for people to look at and reflect about their own feelings or about a friend or family going through the journey.

Following feedback from some of my sample artworks for this assignment, I have decided that for each piece I will have a narrative in the sketchbook/diary or in the sketches or moodboard accompanying it. This will provide extra context to the work I produce.

I will also incorporate positive messages about experience and strength post-menopause and how women can view the next stage of their lives. However this will not preach, it will be a range of ideas and experiences from others to how they have enjoyed living their lives. I want to ensure that viewer is interested in the work enough to discuss both the work and subject matter and achieve my objective of challenging the menopause taboo.



(1) CIPD Voice: Issue 18, CIPD.co.uk, 26th April 2019
(2) ITV Report, 23/11/2016, https://www.itv.com/news/2016-11-23/quarter-of-women-going-through-menopause-considered-leaving-work/