Publications

challenging menstrual norms in online medical advice: deconstructing stigma through entangled art practice

Follow the link to read Bee’s article on menstrual normativity and menstrual art, published in Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics special issue, Feminist Encounters with the Medical Humanities, edited by Jana Funke and Sherri L. Foster.

periodical exhibition

Periodical, curated by Bee Hughes, presented period stigma smashing and celebratory artworks in the Atrium Gallery at Liverpool School of Art & Design. It featured menstrual artworks by Bee Hughes, Poloumi Basu, Amanda Atkinson, Sasha Spyrou and Chella Quint, displays from the Dignity without Danger project, and material from the Femorabilia Collection, Liverpool John Moores University’s Special Collections and Archives.

The exhibition also hosted a period pack packing party with Period Project Merseyside, and an afternoon of period craft activities.

BEE’S WORK COLLECTED BY UNIVERSITY
OF ST ANDREWS

Two digital prints of Bee’s artworks were recently collected by the University of St Andrews Museums and Collections (MUSA).

menstruation in visual culture

This short essay was written to accompany Periodical and contains a very brief introduction to some of the visual cultural history of menstruation.

Performing Periods: Challenging Menstrual Normativity through Art Practice

Bee’s PhD thesis is now available free, and open access, via the LJMU Research Repository.

Bee’s practice-led thesis explores the visual culture of menstruation from an interdisciplinary perspective rooted in art practice and autoethnographic reflection. The thesis aims to interrogate notions of menstrual normativity in anglophone culture, centring on, but not limited to art in the Global North. These notions are informed and reinforced through everyday beliefs, medical authority, advertising and representations of menstruation in art. With reference to art historical, sociological, political / cultural context and my own art and curatorial practice, the thesis proposes that menstrual art can be a powerful medium to re-frame academic, medical and everyday discussions about menstruation by revealing varied experiences of menstruation.

One world period 2020

Bee has produced a video tutorial for creating paper badge rosettes, broadcast as part of Irise International’s One World Period event on 28th May 2020. Below is the free instruction sheet, created by Bee in 2019. Feel free to use this to create your own badges at home.

How cultural attitudes to menstruation have finally started to shift

Blog post for the British Academy written with Dr Kay Standing.

menstruation research network

Follow the link to visit the Menstruation Research Network website, a newly launched UK-based network for researchers studying menstruation.

Video: ‘Re-framing Menstrual Art’ presentation

Watch Bee’s short lecture, ‘Re-framing Menstrual Art’, presented at the Critical Perspectives on Menstruation conference hosted by Menstruation Research Network at the University of St Andrews on 31 May 2019.

audio: Performing Periods: Challenging Menstrual Normativity Through Art Practice

Listen to Bee’s presentation at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR) bi-annual conference ‘Traversing the Ridge: Connecting Menstrual Research and Advocacy’ at Colorado College, 7th June 2019.

Bee presented on the panel ‘Arts-Based Menstrual Practices’ alongside:

David Linton, ’Singing the Menstrual Blues’
Emily Graves, ‘Page to Stage: Translating, and Re-translating the Show, ‘You Menstrual Me’’
Inga T. Winkler & Chris Bobel, ‘Myth-Busting, Modernity, and Saviorism in Representations of Menstrual Beliefs and Practices in the Popular Media’

Menstrual art: why everyone should
go and see it

Article written for The Conversation with Kay Standing.

blog

Bee has kept a blog since 2011 which documents their evolving artistic practice. The blog contains an archive of older works, exhibitions, and works in progress, and is updated semi-regularly.