01 PM | 04 Sep

Future Flora #video: the DIY harvest set for home use, by #biohacker @gitomasello [#geekgirl]

Giulia Tomasello: Future Flora is a harvesting kit designed to treat and prevent vaginal infections. The project tackles the experience of growing and nurturing living organisms at home, enabling the female to become a participant in the culture and knowledge of science. The kit is composed by an inoculation loop, a spreader, a pipette with freeze‑dried bacterial compound and the nutrient agar‑agar recipe, plus an instruction leaflet providing the necessary steps to grow and harvest your own pad at home. The included tools are now considered basic laboratory equipment. The bacterial pad grows the necessary strings of Lactobacillus bacteria to create a hostile environment for the further development of Candida Albicans, acting as living culture of probiotics. By placing the pad in contact with the female genitalia, the healthy bacteria grow on the surface of the infected area, reconstructing the microflora missing in the vagina epithelium. Considering that 75% of women suffer from Candida vulvovaginitis (CVV) at least once in their lifetime, Future Flora explores women’s approach in the context of personal self‑care and body awareness, generating an intimate and delicate interaction between the action of nurturing bacteria while they grow, and then wear them as a second layer of your panties.

Celebrating Female #Biophilia

02 PM | 30 Jun

Not so pretty in #pink, the #art of Margaret Meehan #RiotGrrrl [#geekgirl]

Margaret-Meehan

Detail of Power to the People (2015).  Photograph: Margaret Meehan (c), courtesy of Flowers Gallery

Margaret Meehan’s collages and sculptures turn ostracised, forgotten women into defiant modern feminists – giving voice to the fringe with prosthetics and paint

“I love pink,” laughs Meehan. “In high school I was sort of the punk girl pushing against its girly associations. But I got over that; I found a book called Pink in Contemporary Art and it showed me how subversive that colour’s been. I was using pink as a bruise; as pus and blood.” For a 2011 show in which she reimagined the hairy-faced 19th-century hypertrichosis sufferer Alice Doherty as a powerful female boxer, Meehan learned to do prosthetics, giving her Doherty model a split lip and broken eyelid. Pink, yes, but certainly not pretty.

Source: The Guardian

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