After some recent discussions with painter Justin Ogilvie about ‘the Abject’ I thought I would make a post about the idea.

Justin asked if I could described the abject in a few words, so I said “Imagine a beautiful woman, and then imagine a beautiful woman with shit, piss and period blood. After thinking about my description, it doesn’t quite explain it.

I learned about ‘the abject’ in my Gender studies class after reading Julie Kristeva’s Powers of Horror.

Somewhere between object and subject lies the abject. A corpse is a good example of abject; it is the materiality of living and subject turned inanimate object. It is experience at seeing death, and upon realizing the material of life, react in shock and horror. We realize we are really animated objects. This also describes the stuff people leave from their bodies like hair, toe nail clippings, blood, piss and shit, skin cells, and limbs. When attached to the body it is alive a part of a human, once detached it is an object (and often received with disgust or horror.)

Here’s an amazing website called onmyperiod.com which has period photographs and menstrual art, which is an example of how blood can be abject. It is a great site by May Ling Su…not for the fearful of period blood.

Jan 27th, 2010 by lindsayjoy