The Uterine Concert Hall takes place in a woman’s vaginal canal
Canadian artist, Dayna McLeod is staging a concert in her vaginal canal and it is called The Uterine Concert Hall.
Those who show up, queue up to listen to music playing inside her uterus via a stethoscope.
This performance artist is challenging the societal expectation of, in her words ‘a body marked as female’ with the Uterine Concert Hall. The first night of this special concert took place around two weeks ago at the Darling Foundry in Montreal.
The Uterine Concert Hall performance piece is in direct response to vaginal speakers that are advertised to pregnant women. The speakers are meant to help the mom play music to her unborn baby and to be ‘closer’ with the fetus through her vagina. This notion is utterly ridiculous of course and we covered the story a few months back when we came across the Baby Pod Fetus sound system.
“The fact that these companies are literally inserting themselves into women’s bodies sends a message to new mothers that they need technology to not only be a good mother, but to be a great mother.” Said McLeod
How the concert works
Those who attend the Uterine Concert Hall are able to listen to headphones that connect them with the DJ set at full dance party volume before it goes into the artist’s body or by stethoscope once the sound is literally inside of the artist.
McLeod also wants to highlight the misguided social norms of shooting off reproductive questions to women throughout their lives. When she was younger she was continuously asked whether or not she had children, and now that she is over forty she is asked whether or not she ever wanted to have children.
The message is clear, the female body is specifically categorized as that which procreates despite the fact that females have always and will always continue to exist as full human beings outside of the functions of their uteruses. Criticism persists, whether a woman chooses to have kids or not…
“I hope that visitors to Uterine Concert Hall are talking with each other in the line while they wait. I hope that the anticipation of listening to sounds through my body generates wonder that will not evaporate once they put on that stethoscope and they don’t experience Dolby surround sound. I hope that whether they heard sound clearly, as echoes, or so faint they questioned whether they heard anything at all, they will leave thinking and talking about what we expect from bodies that are marked as female. What is it that we want the female body to do, and why do we think that we have the right to ask that question of anyone in the first place?” shared McLeod
