Part Betsy Ross, part Tracey Emin, New York artist Coralina Meyer is sewing a series of "Cunt Quilts" made from American women's dirty underwear to interrogate citizenship and "to engage others to share their personal experiences as acts of freedom." The project, entitled The Great Underwear Audit began with a clever call-to-action on Facebook for the used underwear of her countrywomen:
"A constellation of shared stories and worn out women's underwear, the quilt will be a shameless anecdotal patchwork of the soft, digital self, and the stern, body product. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled drawers, yearning to breathe free! No matter the condition- they'll be a revelation of the shameful, the sanitized, the washed-up, the worn, the probed, the holy, the scarlet, the loosened, the exonerated, the secret, and the secreted."
So far, she has had 72 submissions. In an interview with Hyperallergic, Meyer, who is creating the work under the name 'Lambastic' outlined three phases of the project: "the Underwear Audit accounts for our bodies, the Stitch 'n' Bitch airs our grievances, and the Cunt Quilt is an association formed." Meyer intends to sew a new flag on a quarterly basis for at least the next four years, or "until a woman is elected to the country's highest office," and plans to wave the first flag at the Women's March this Saturday.
If you want to make your undies a part of herstory, send them to Meyer here:
Lambastic
PO box 220417
66 Meserole Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11222-9997
[h/t Dazed]
Splash image via Coralina Meyer, Lambastic