The art of menstrual resistance: the experience of menstrual artists in Amsterdam and beyond

Colonial/modern understandings of menstruation are based on the hierarchisation of bodies, emerged as a tool of the European colonial expansion around the world. This narrative of the menstruating body stigmatizes it as polluting, unproductive, disgusting or reduces it solely to the function of reproduction. This paper is a quest to understanding how menstrual artists experience creating menstrual art and though this resisting the colonial/modern menstrual stigma. By guiding the reader through six conversations with different menstrual artists in proximity to Amsterdam this text explores the possibilities of re-imagining menstruation ‘otherwise’.