Team 8

What happened next

we got lost in our world building

Second session with Alex

• Guidance towards creating the world around the object we have chosen, not an object for the world we create.
• How to encourage compassion in people of our world?
• Transitioning and connecting through a shared aspect regardless of age and the stage

Where we went next

We started thinking about what materials a menstruation cup can be made of and how that would affect the function and the meaning.

We discussed associations and what different meanings and rituals can come from that.

For example we thought about using wax as material and the meaning a menstruation cup shaped candle could have.
It could be a ritual of commemoration when you are experiencing an absence of your period or going through menopause.

Descriptions

We want to have 2 descriptions:

1. A subjective emotional description from a person who used this object, not clearly explaining how it is used but the emotional meaning of using it for them. This description might be found alongside the object and interpreted as mystical.
   1. the cycle feels different for everyone, we are missing (shared) rituals thoughout
      
2. An outsider’s view on the object and assumption of how it was used and what it meant
   1. “scientific” description that you would find in a museum

Update on Worldbuilding

scaling down to a small community…

The Ritual

A “found footage” video documentation of a ritual around the cup and menstruation: We will not give context, it is a mystical artefact that future ethnographers will speculate about.

We will ask everyone at the midterms to describe what they see and what they think the meaning is, who the people are, where it was filmed. We will use that input to create a speculative description that could be found at a museum in 100 years.

Next Steps

• make more candles
• film the ritual
• write or collect subjective descriptions

Alice Abela, Weronika Bojkowska, Parnian Farmani, Emilia Gruber

Common ground

• Hormonal cycle
• Food culture
• Contraception and fertility
• Fictional history
• Rituals

Object Studies

Thinking about the future

We took already existing hidden ritual that is part of hormonal cycle and menstruation and translated it into the future, making it a visible and important part of the belief system of a specific community

Narration and Worldbuilding

creating a fictional religious community in the future centered around the hormonal cycle

1. Connection to nature is the highest force
2. Biological calender, measurement of time based on cycle/bodily processes
3. Bleeding as a service for the community
4. Burial ritual to become a fertilizer to the plants you have tended to throughout your life
5. Symbol: immortal jellyfish (Medusa)
   1. The species “Turritopsis dohrnii”: reverts if stressed and is “reborn”
   2. Symbol of protecting and practicing rest in contrast to current capitalist culture, and honoring the cyclicality of life and nature

Possible story-telling

A form of documentation of this community and their rituals and habits, recorded by one or two members of the community

Next steps

• Creating the future world regardless of the religion
  • future of fertility, reproduction and natural resources
• Thinking what kinds of rituals could we be interpreted to have today from the perspective of that future
• Starting the journal
• Sketching more vessels
• Specifying the gardening, food practices, and rituals
• Visit the contraception and abortion museum in Vienna