BLOOM Welcomes Viewers Into the Vaginal Imaginary
Photo credit: Beth Devillier
If you have ever had the fortune to hear Nao Bustamante chat about her artistic process, you would know that for the Los Angeles-based Latina artist, a project’s genesis is often a constant burr in her brain. In other words, an idea for a work of art pops into her head where she ruminates on it for some time and, if the burring does not go away, it is time to take action and bring it into being, whether that “it” is a performance, a film, an installation, a combination of any of these, or maybe even something else. Such is the case with BLOOM, Bustamante’s latest multimedia research-based art project where she is re-imagining the speculum that is traditionally used in pelvic exams for cis-women. After yet another uncomfortable pelvic examination in 2011, Bustamante thought that there must be a tool that would not be so uncomfortable and painful and began to imagine such a device, a new speculum named Bloom, inspired by a flower with blooming soft petals and much less intrusive than the duck-billed opening ones of the traditional tool.
The exhibit, BLOOM, currently on view at Artpace San Antonio, which opened to the public July 15, is part of this re-imagining, and, in large part, is the result of Bustamante’s residency there. Among the pieces included are five framed sketches, three of which give us some insight into what Bustamante’s speculum may look like once it is made, while the other two are drawings of other tools already in use. These five works from the BLOOM series were intervened by Artpace intern Piper Bangs who painted botanical flowers on the glass surface using oil paint, not only adding color to the otherwise mostly charcoal tones, but also strengthen the connection between the idea of Bustamante’s speculum to a softer and gentler nature. In addition to introducing us to her device-in progress, for the Artpace Summer 2021 International Artist-In-Residence program—curated by Pilar Tompkins Rivas and included fellow artists Iván Argote and Michael Menchaca—Bustamante spent the two months of her residency furthering her research, fostering community connections, and making additional pieces for BLOOM.
Those of you familiar with Bustamante’s artistic work, which spans close to three decades now, will know that she’s been pivoting from exposure of her own body to exploring notions of the vulnerability of the body, her own and, in general, women’s bodies and trying to find ways to ensure their protection. The previous multimedia research-based art project from 2013 and onward, Soldadera, is an important marking point in this shift and through those different elements that make-up the whole of the project Bustamante focused on the figure of the soldadera (women soldier from the Mexican Revolution). In one of those pieces, she speculatively imagined and found ways to protect her from modern forms of violence by creating, first one dress then a series of dresses made of Kevlar, the synthetic material often used in wearable products for the purpose of protecting from harm, for example bullets. The spirit behind Soldadera is very-much shaping the thinking around the project BLOOM, which is as much about taking the dark past regarding cis-women’s gynecological history to task as it is about ensuring gentler and more women-centered ways of caring for our bodies, while also protecting them.
From the Pelvic Examination to the Vaginal Imaginary
Photo credit: Beth Devillier
To enter the gallery where BLOOM is on display, one has to go through huge, velvety-textured, red theatrical curtains to simulate a vaginal entrance. Once inside, this feeling is enhanced as we are in a space with flesh-toned colored walls, whether we register this consciously or not. While the intention of the flesh-colored walls may go unnoticed, it is difficult to not notice the vintage table that is suspended mid-air on the opposite end of the entry point. In other words, while Bustamante’s BLOOM is intent in enveloping you in the sumptuousness of a vaginal embrace, it also wants to remind you of the dark medical history of women’s reproductive health, resultant of patriarchal and racist regimes embedded in scientific knowledge production, and of the continual social and cultural battles fought over and through women’s bodies with the aim of controlling them. The gynecological examination table hanging from the skylight with chains on pulleys is such a pronounced commendation of that dark history. Bustamante entitled this vintage found object from the 19th century Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy in order to connect the “father of modern gynecology” James Marion Sims, whose abhorrent research practices on enslaved Black women, three of whom were named Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy, to the development of the duck-billed speculum that is still widely used today during pelvic examinations.
In addition to this critique, which was made more evident during the opening night’s performance, Bustamante adds the following wall text, somewhere between the framed series BLOOM mentioned previously and the suspended table: “Drape across the knees- curtain rising dividing front stage from backstage, while the spotlight shines on the spectacle in the pelvic proscenium.” Using this slight adjustment to Terri Kapsalis’ words from her book Private Publics: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum (Duke U P, 1997, 15), Bustamante not only understands the power of theatrical metaphors, but is cognizant that notions of looking and perceiving teeter between the private and public. Let us not forget that both speculum—from the Latin, a forming tool with a mirror to aid one in looking—and spectacle –the Latin spectaculum is a “public show,” something worth looking at—have shared etymological roots. As Bustamante explained during her artist talk on opening night, so much of the ways in which the pelvic examination was developed and continues to be performed, depends on the idea of the separation between front and backstage wherein with a piece of cloth (understood as a sort of theatrical curtain) the area of the pelvis becomes the proscenium, and what stays behind the stage becomes irrelevant; thus, this performance relies on a woman’s ability to disassociate from any feelings experienced from what is happening below the waist during the examination. Put differently, Bustamante (pace Kapsalis) understands the pelvic examination as a performative, and thus, through BLOOM, not only the new examination tool she is developing, but all of the parts that constitute the exhibit, she is seeking to deconstruct the examination and open up possibilities to help us not only experience it differently and with a gentler tool, but in general for all of us to also reconnect with our vagina, even when it may be an imagined one. Or, as the artist quips, for us to enter the vaginal imaginary.
The other parts of the exhibit effectuate this imaginative exploration of our own bodies, particularly those connected to reproductive and sexual health. While the development of a new pelvic exam tool is at the heart of this project, it is by no means a research process done in isolation and much less in a science lab; Bustamante is interested in shifting the narrative around and the ways we relate to matters pertaining to women’s reproductive health in the modern world, particularly in this geographical and temporal context, be it Texas or the United States and well into this new century. This narrative shift and communal response to call attention to retrograde laws that continue to be passed feels joyful, through Bustamante’s project, but is also urgent. Writing this from Austin, Texas I would be remiss to not mention at least one of these laws: Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) in Texas that now bans abortion upon detection of fetal cardiac activity, six weeks, and deputizes anyone to sue abortion providers and others who “aid and abet” a person obtaining abortion care. And, through BLOOM, Bustamante is fully aware that abortion is part of women’s health and is reproductive justice. With that in mind, the exhibit literally centers the installation entitled Vaginal Imaginary that consists of clay sculptures on table that were, save one, made by different members of the community during an afternoon event, a “Speculum Salon,” as part of the Artpace residency work Bustamante did during her two months in San Antonio. The attendees “were asked to meditate on the vaginal imaginary and create their own versions of the next speculum. There is also a clay prototype of the new BLOOM speculum, made by local ceramist Michael Foerster in collaboration with Bustamante,” notes the Artpace website. This installation is strategically centered in the middle of the gallery and is in a parallel position to another one that’s against the wall, an encased table that displays a series of medical speculums that are still in use. This juxtaposition serves to create the very tension that Bustamante wants to explore with BLOOM, and, I would argue, to ultimately explode. The short video Gruesome History (speculum puppet), projected in a monitor (single channel video) and that is positioned slightly above the encased table with the speculums, aids in my analysis and interpretation of the works that constitute BLOOM and the way they are laid out in the gallery, they are most always in conversation with what is next to or in opposition to. Using a puppet made out of a modern-day speculum with bulging eyes, Bustamante narrates the tool’s ghastly history and makes it somewhat digestible for the spectators as it is humorous, a constant in Bustamante’s work, wanting to elicit uncomfortable laughter.
A particular corner of the gallery is reserved for the Vagnasium installation, which consists of another video on a monitor, but this one on an angle from above onto a three-person slightly-slanted couch that is intended for one spectator at a time as the wall text instructs to “lay down” to participate in a series of breathing and Kegel-like exercises led by Bustamante on the 8-minute plus video. In it, Bustamante is herself sitting on the very same couch in the gallery, which she sourced while thrifting in San Antonio, with a backdrop of another video shot inside the Cave Without a Name just outside of the city as she invites us all to enter the space of the vaginal imaginary. Thus, the Vagnasium garners a powerful place within the exhibition as it centers the participant’s well-being through their/our own participation through their/our vagina, imagined or otherwise. In other words, this installation is activated by the visitors to Artpace, something that Bustamante is keen on doing, lest we forget that one of her principal modes of art-making is performance.
Just as the gynecological examination table that I mentioned above, another installation within the exhibit was also activated during the opening night performance; or, perhaps it is better to say, Bustamante built it with audience participation. I am referring to Fountain, a tower of champagne coupes with red or red-ish lipstick stains on them, to reference the fact that they are performance remains, but also, of course, to suggest vaginal lips. While the flow of champagne that accompanied the performance on opening night is suggested by the third video of the exhibition, Portal, a single channel video projected on the wall nearest to Fountain with a video on loop that shows a water hole, we hear the water dripping, something that was also shot in San Antonio, its famous Riverwalk to be more specific.
Activating the Vaginal Imaginary
To enter the gallery space for the performance on opening night we had to make our way through the velvet curtains while San Antonio musician Pamela Martínez was punctuating our movement into the space with sonic vibrations using tuning forks and speculums, one of each in each of her hands. We were then drawn towards the installation Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy where, on the gynecological examination table, Bustamante was lying flat, facing up. I had walked into the gallery with my colleague Jennifer Doyle, a professor at UC Riverside; once we were at the front and at the edge of the make-shift proscenium, she suggested we sit on the floor, thus modeling what the rest of the spectators might also do. Once we had created a performance space with everyone in their/our respective places, Martínez began to make her way to the proscenium, first directly in front of the suspended table where she performed a ritual of sorts to indicated the beginning of the “act,” before making her way to the side where a harp awaited her. Martínez’s harp playing established a contrapuntal relationship to the guttural sounds that Bustamante had started to make, along with her slight corporeal movements on the suspended table. As the movements began to increase, Bustamante’s jarring vocal sounds did too. When fellow artist and long-time collaborator Marcus Kuiland-Nazario entered the performance space, he and Bustamante began to pull at each of the two chains on pulleys to lower the table. This added an even louder and more jarring sound, thus sonically filling the space as we watched three sets of arms in action, two pulling at the chains and the third at the harp chords. Once slightly off the ground, Bustamante’s intense movements to get off the table added a different sonic texture, which only increased once she was on her feet and began to push, shove, and hit the table as if to eradicate all of its bad energy.
Nao Bustamante activates the installation Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy (found object) while Pamela Martínez’s sonic ritual announces the beginning of the performance during opening night. Photo credit: Francisco Cortés
Once this ritualistic exorcism “act” ended, a more communal participatory and joyful “act” commenced. Bustamante, who was donning a full body, light-flesh colored gown, and Kuiland-Nazario, dressed in similar tones, walked among the audience and began to distribute single-use lipsticks. All the while she was also instructing us to put it on and modeling some lip-smacking popping sounds, along with some “oohs” and “aahs,” yet again adding an additional layer to the sonic texture—Martínez continues to play the harp. Once the lipsticks had been distributed, Bustamante opened up another performance space on the opposite end, closer to the entrance, in order to perform a sabrage, it was a ceremonious occasion after all. However, rather than using a saber, Bustamante used a machete and, when the champagne bottle popped, the pouring began. The champagne coupes were set up on a table and Bustamante, assisted by Kuiland-Nazario, began to pour and create a fountain. The occasional popping of additional champagne bottles, along with oohs and aahs, lip popping and the melodies from the harp created a beautiful soundtrack as we watched the pouring and, soon after, each of us got a glass and toasted to the evening and to the artist and drank, leaving traces of our vaginal imaginary behind, on Fountain.
Nao Bustamante pours champagne on the coupes with the assistance of Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, to bring the audience in to help build the installation Fountain by leaving lip marks on the glasses. The video Portal is being projected in the background. Photo credit: Francisco Cortés
This exhibit that centers women’s reproductive health and considers ways to make it better, in the context of Texas, is timely given the state’s retrograde politics and conservative politicians’ desire to control women’s health. Yet, I would add, BLOOM is an exhibit that is relevant to any and all geographical locations and historical junctures, unfortunately. But fortunately for us, Bustamante’s burr never went away so that she can educate, make us shiver, make us laugh, and give us pleasure through her latest artistic project. Major props to the Summer 2021 International Artist-In-Residency program curator Tompkins Rivas, Bustamante’s collaborators, and the staff at Artpace that not only offered Bustamante the opportunity to make this work, but also helped in the process so that we could partake in imagining a better way of caring for our reproductive and sexual health. The exhibit is up until September 5, if you are not able to make it to San Antonio before it closes, keep an eye out for it as the project will continue to grow and evolve.
Laura G. Gutiérrez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches classes related to culture and performance from a queer and feminist position and across the curriculum often using a transnational framework. She is the author of Performing Mexicanidad: Vendidas y Cabareteras on the Transnational Stage (U Texas P, 2010) and has published essays and book chapters on topics such as Latinx performance, border art, Mexican video art, and Mexican political cabaret. Some recent writing has appeared in book chapter form in Decentering the Nation and The Cambridge History of Latina/o Literature. Currently, she is completing a monograph tentatively entitled Binding Intimacies in Contemporary Queer Latinx Performance and Visual Art that opens up the possibility to think about the notion of intimacy to conceptualize collaborations and conversations related to artistic work, including the life the artists live and strive to make more livable, often under great duress. To read more, click here.