Argueza, Leigh Anne (Wk. 6- Xandra Ibarra)

 

    Xandra Ibarra, or better known as her alias La Chica Boom, is an Oakland performance artist who uses videos and sculpture mediums to explore racial, gendered and queer subject matter. After reviewing her collections, I stumbled across the artist’s series titled She’s on the Rag c. 2013-2020 where Ibarra collected her menstrual emissions and used them as the main medium in multiple Rorschach compositional pieces. Ibarra included a complementary psychodynamic analysis video with the series where she narrates what these images may evoke from the reader. Ibarra’s She’s on the Rag series reminded me of another artist, Frédéric Fontenoy’s photographic series titled Alkama which was created using unconventional mediums such as blood and milk. I am always fond of artists who use unconventional mediums, mainly blood or bodily fluids in their work because they imbue the piece with something natural, raw, and it cures different than traditional materials.

    I think that it’s also important to note that menstruation is generally a forbidden theme, but it desperately needs to be normalized. It’s a natural function of female bodies that sheds uterine lining every month- it's nothing to be ashamed of or ridiculed for its occurrences. But unfortunately, it is still a topic that makes people uncomfortable, which is why I think when Ibarra uses it as her main medium in her series, She’s on the Rag, it makes the audience view menses in a different context that is far removed from that narrow perspective. I think that Ibarra confronts the topic of menses and masturbation by associating with flight or flying. I translated this and interpreted her psychodynamic video as the action of menses and masturbation leading to euphoria, or an elated release where she laid pieces of herself out for the audience to bear witness. Similar to a chemical released during menses and masturbation, like hormonal estrogen, progestogen, and testosterone- again, a completely natural occurrence. 

Question for the artist: 

1. How many pieces do you often work on at the same time?

2. Particularly for the series that work with unconventional mediums, do you find it easier to improvise your performances or do you organize your pieces beforehand?