Abstract
Historic European sites feature powerful feminine icons colloquially called “Sheela Na Gigs.” These icons depict the female figure in the spread eagle conception or birth-giving pose, and reveal the female genital as the font of magic, creativity, pleasure and life. Vulva imagery can be found in sacred sites, shrines, church architecture and other historic monuments dating from the medieval period. Examples of historic and contemporary stone carvings that prominently display the vulva exist from Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceana and the Americas, in both sacred and profane art and architecture. Vulva-flashing double-tailed mermaids are prominently featured in Renaissance art, crests, heraldry, dynastic insignia, architecture and monuments. The icon is currently being reclaimed by feminists and gender identity activists in Ireland (Jenny Stevens, ‘Big vagina energy: the return of the Sheela na gig,’ Guardian, March 8, 2021). In my study, I explore possible religious, spiritual, magical and apotropaic functions of ‘vulva goddesses’ of antiquity, and aim to trace iconographic and thematic connections from these early examples to Baubo figurines of the ancient Greeks and the contemporary revival of Sheela na Gig vulva imagery (Faurot, ‘The Secret History of the Vulva,’ Ms Magazine, March 25, 2023). To this end, I employ a multi-disciplinary approach that includes art historical analysis, feminist critique, cultural context, and analysis of emotional histories and communities that have built up around the figures. My objective is to treat a wide cross-section of images from around the globe with an accessible, discursive, auto-ethnographic methodology.
Presenters
Yvonne OwensAdvisory Board, Editorial, Coreopsis Journal of Myth and Theatre, British Columbia, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Feminism, Art, Critique, Sheela Na Gig, Vulva Iconography
