Rachel Bride Ashton (she/her) is an art student at DJCAD in Dundee.
I have a cyclical, organic creative process whereby drawings, paintings, prints, objects, installation and film generate characters, scenarios and microcosms and this year, also sculpture. These often precipitate a performance which generates words, sound and video narrative, then back round again. This way of working redefines and confuses the contexts of my work in a teeming, effervescing conglomeration, much like a compost heap. I try to use materials which are, where possible, non-toxic, rescued from going to landfill or biodegradable.
I challenge the patriarchal and technocratic appropriation of our health and lifestyles and investigate the 90% non-human part of us, our microbiome, formed at birth. In a series of film shorts, I play the comic stereotype of a natural, hairy, animal-woman, a faecal fairy, a fermenting fairy, celebrating good bacteria and its sources, who calls for body autonomy and reunification of the fragmented bio-cosmic human garden. She morphs between plant, animal, human and turd, giving birth to herself whilst spreading rainbow psychobiotics.
I document the scatological processes of my off-grid home life, involving separation compost toilets and wild fermentation. I reenact the journey of natural vaginal birth, it’s effluvia and the disease resistance it can provide for life, while exposing the dark side of obstetrics. An etching turns live action in my short film ‘Dr Wolf’, where my recurring contemporary fairytale character, with comic arrogance, teaches the so-called husband stitch.
@rachelbrideashton