Chiara Nowak

The video-based installation aims to reclaim both the language and space used to express the menstrual experience. Bringing anecdotal experiences to the forefront, the video narrates the experience of using a period tracking app, showcasing how the sanitised and limited vocabulary of commercial period tracking apps often discredits and minimises lived experience. The work combines a documentary style approach with fictional footage to embody key moments from a broader, ongoing research project titled "Not a Period.". 

 “Not a Period.” investigates how female health technologies can be reimagined within a feminist framework. The research process, so far, has gathered knowledge through conversational style interviews with menstruating women and experts from the field of Feminism and Tech. Most notably this includes Morgane Billuart, and initiatives such as Drip, The Digital Period, and the Feminist Dictionary in AI (Datawo). Alongside this, workshops were held to develop an alternative vocabulary to that of commercial apps which has been integrated in the exhibition space in a process of reclamation.

The title "Not a Period." emphasises that the graduation project is not a definitive outcome, but rather a point in an ongoing discourse. The video honours this by concluding with the initial formulation of an open list of principles, starting the conception of a Feminist Tech Manifesto.