Yale University Threatens to Ban Controversial Art Piece From Exhibition
April 21st, 2008 | by admin |
It is being reported that Yale University has threatened to pull the art exhibit created by senior student Aliza Shvarts out of an exhibition if she does not admit that it was not the result of her artificially inseminating herself and self-inducing miscarriages.
When confronted by Yale staff, the student admitted that the project was not actually based on her miscarriages but on Friday, she changed her story again.
“The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body,” said Helaine Klasky, a university spokeswoman.
According to Shvarts, whose story first appeared in the school newspaper, she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while taking herbal drugs to induce miscarriages.
“The most poignant aspect of this representation - the part most meaningful in terms of its political agenda (and, incidentally, the aspect that has not been discussed thus far) - is the impossibility of accurately identifying the resulting blood,” Shvarts said.
She does admit that despite inducing repeated abortions she was never sure if she was actually pregnant.
“Because the miscarriages coincide with the expected date of menstruation (the 28th day of my cycle), it remains ambiguous whether . . . there was ever a fertilized ovum or not. The reality of the pregnancy, both for myself and for the audience, is a matter of reading,” she wrote.
“In this case, we will not permit her to install the project unless she submits a clear and unambiguous written statement that her installation is a work of fiction: that she did not try to inseminate herself and induce miscarriages, and that no human blood will be physically displayed in her installation,” Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said in a statement released Monday.
