Period. A Community Research Residency @ WORM Rotterdam

From October 2021 - May 2022 I created a community based artist research project about Black people and periods throgh the art space WORM in Rotterdam.

My aim was to explore the idea that Black people are often cast outside of holistic health even though a lot of alternative health modalities actually draw from Black, POC and Indigenous knowledge…

I designed call out for Black people who experience menstrual challenges to sign up. Once we had a group of participants, we met monthly across 6 months. The first part of each session was dedicated on our own period experiences and sharing of approaches from our own African diasporic backgrounds so that we could learn from each other. In the second hour of each session I invited alternative health practitioners / dancers / masseurs - you name it, to share their expertise. For instance we were joined by an acupuncturist, embodied dancer / choreographer, spiritual womb healer and a fibroid specialist.

The project culminated in interactive exhibition where we shared our learnings, launched our zine (you can read it here), people got to listen to our radio show (you can listen to episode 1 here), or our period inspired playlist, test your knowledge of uterus anatomy or the seasons of the menstrual cycle and generally just come together in community and help to release taboo around the topic.