Mary‘s Dress 

Mary‘s Dress 

Pure Waste 

Pure Waste engages with the ongoing marginalisation of menstruating bodies and interrogates cultural narratives around purity, "femininity," and consumption. At its centre is the visibility of the female-read body and its medial coding — particularly through an advertising culture oriented towards control and discipline.

The dress is composed of 10,000 menstrual pads — the estimated lifetime quantity for a menstruating person — and is formally modelled on a wedding gown. The confrontation of two symbolically charged objects — wedding dress and menstrual product — renders visible the contradictory social expectations placed upon "female" bodies. In the sense of Julia Kristeva, the abject — that which the symbolic order excludes because it threatens its boundaries — is here clothed in the very form that most powerfully represents that order. The hidden presses into the space of the public and poses the question of what may be shown — and what may not.

Pure Waste critiques not only aestheticised forms of bodily control, but also the ecological and social neglect of menstruation. For a long time, menstrual products in Austria were subject to luxury tax; only recently were tampons first tested with actual menstrual blood — belated steps that expose the structural invisibility of menstruating bodies. This invisibility is no accident, but part of a larger system. At a time when abortion rights are being restricted around the world, it becomes clear how closely the control of the cycle is bound up with questions of autonomy, reproduction, and participation.

"As an artist, I interrogate the power structures that determine how bodies are perceived and evaluated. Pure Waste is an ironic engagement with the social construction of shame and purity in relation to menstruating bodies and consumer society."

Mary‘s Dress 

Mary‘s Dress 

Mary‘s Dress 

Mary‘s Dress 

Mary‘s Dress