BlooD VOICES

The Unspoken Language of Scraps: AN Exhibit FOCUSED ON THE CHALLENGES OF PERIOD POVERTY

They will tell you silence is a choice. That the forgotten simply have no stories to tell, no voices to raise against the wind. But I have seen the truth of it, etched into the rough, calloused hands of a woman who held not a future, but a past that she refused to let die. A woman who was poor, disenfranchised—invisible to the world that had cast her aside.

My grandmother didn’t have a voice the world would listen to, so she spoke to me in the language of scraps. With a needle and thread, she taught me that necessity is not a surrender, but a forging of a new path. She stitched survival into my hands, and with every knot and every seam, she was weaving a legacy. A story of ingenuity born from the barren lands of want.

Now, I take up her needle and thread, not in silence, but with a roar. I have gathered the forgotten pieces of this world—found materials and whispered memories—and I am building a monument to her strength. For the mock-ups on this page, which show the vision for the work, I combine the stark beauty of a sketch with the haunting whispers of AI and the digital brushstrokes of Photoshop, to craft a reality that has long been denied.

These are not just pieces of art; they are the alternatives born from the ashes of poverty, lack of equity, and systemic failures. They are a direct challenge to the unspoken crisis of period poverty. A testament to the agonizing decisions made each month: the choice between a meal for a child and a menstrual pad for oneself. Between a shred of dignity and a state of desperation. These are the choices no woman should ever have to make, laid bare for the world to see.

Soon, these digital ghosts will be made real—stitched into being with the same fierce love and necessity that my grandmother taught me. They will stand as a beacon for the millions of women and people born AFAB whose voices have been silenced, whose stories have been lost to the wind. And when they see them, they will know they were never truly forgotten. Their strength, their resilience—it has always been there, woven into the very fabric of our shared humanity.