A performance with Thai constitution reading and dance.

As a female artist who reckons herself a laborer, Sasapin brings her questions that rise when hearing debates around menstruation to flip them over and make it seen that menstruation isn’t something mysterious in the least.

Arguments about menstruation that grow into different ways that the state and society try to control and dictate how menstruation should operate, splatter and scatter. Economic, societal, demographic, and religious concepts are used to analyse menstruation and its entailment, as though it’s something anyone can control, choose against, manipulate, and amend, like how you would put an object in a box.

And when the owner of the menstruating body lives in the world of work and labor, it seems they need to forget that there is a womb that will bleed every month - the very womb that can take them on an emotional roller coaster, that can squeeze until they faint or even fall ill, and that will require them to grab a menstrual product fast enough to stop the blood from staining which can cause shock and distress to those who witness it. Otherwise, they’d be seen as weak, ineffective, impatient, aggressive, and simply lazy.

The blood that flows, even if it’s predictable, is not controllable.

Sasapin proposes a re-imagination of menstruating labor workers through this video and installation work, with images of invisible labor that sometimes slip off of our consciousness, and menstruation flipping inside out, flowing whenever it wants. With this comes the social burden required for menstruation management in order to keep the blood out of other people’s sight and awareness, just so we could toil away for one or two more days, or one more week.

Thanks to my own womb and other wombs. Thank you to my collaborating artists Surachai Petchsaengrot and Wichaya Artamat. Thank you to owners of pre-loved menstrual products from the Cuppers’ Community Thailand group.