TNUC is an attempt at reframing and reaffirming some of the meaning lost behind the word cunt, researching the history, etymology, social and cultural understandings of the word. This exploration almost immediately inspired us to liken the character of the physical cunt with the fruit pomegranate. “Pomegranate is cunt. It’s curvy. It’s a Her. When you cut it, it bleeds. It tastes acidic. It’s edible. It has a womb with seeds. In art history, pomegranates painted alongside beautiful women symbolize their abundance and fertility. In Saudi Arabia men sing to a pomegranate when courting women” – Giulia and Ahaad.
Using this as a starting point they chose to transfer the character of this fruit into something new. Boiling and dyeing their own “Cunt fabric” with a “Cunt dye.” For them, Cunt is a mystical creature that is alive. The zine the two have created encourages a reanalysis of the perspective of the word “Cunt” graphically illustrated in their “TNUC.” This zine addresses the words’ representations– socially, historically and metaphysically – and explores the pronunciation as well as how the meaning changed both culturally and scientifically. The video “The sacred and profane” is a montage of scenes from a wide range of visual media including cult films such as “Saturday Night Fever,” YouTube videos and archives. It looks specifically at the icons, signals and the contextual use of the word in media, which forces us again to look at the role media plays in our perception of it – particularly with regard to our understanding about its use towards or in relation to women.
TNUC is a collaboration that resulted in a zine, a film, and 3-D wall environment. CUNT will inform and educate visitors about subjects like fertility and infertility, mental health and gynecology, being comfortable in your own skin and conquering taboos.
Credits:
CUNT a The Laundry arts exhibition, supported by:
Depop and Babyface
Laundry Service by:
Georgina Johnson
Artists:
Curator Georgina Johnson, Artist Ahaad Almoudi, Photographer Dafy Hagai, Bio-hacking designer Giulia Tomasello, Painter Jameson and Illustrator Sophie Rawlingson.
The First Television Remote Control! (1961) https://vimeo.com/239790949
Cunt Qualms Podcast https://www.mixcloud.com/NTSRadio/laundry-service-cunt-qualms-pt-1/
