« Vaginismus is the impossibility for a woman to be penetrated by involuntary contracture of the muscles of the perineum.
Making vaginal women draw the representation of their genital apparatus is an attempt to assess their perception of interior-exterior continuity and the possible fear of an impossibility of passage, of a break-in; it is also to lay a basis for discussion.
The origin of this pathology is psychological.
These few drawings show an absence of vulva or a devalued vision of the vulva; the preponderance of an internal organ (the uterus) unrelated and even unrelated to the outside. The absence of a vulva is as illuminating as an erroneous diagram. These drawings are explicit and touching. I know the story, protected by medical secrecy. I used in embroidery some of my own medical designs for example for the monograms of Scars and here I wanted to express the suffering of these women through these embroidered designs.
The choice of the black wire is made to underline the sobriety of the diagrams, a kind of “economy” or “poverty” concerning the imagination of the representation. Placed like hieroglyphs in cartridges, these diagrams remind me of "sacred basics"
....
To embroider these drawings in old sheets is to deeply inscribe in a historical framework the suffering of contemporary women, moreover timeless and universal. These drawings represent unique, individual stories but most often relating to cultural injunctions where the submission of women to male domination is almost always questioned. »
extract from Interview III with Élisabeth Chambon curator and Heritage Curator
in "The curious cabin of Edith, artist and collector" 2022 Edition Arnaud Bizalion
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