Aida Silvestri: Unsterile Clinic

Until 17th September 2016
FREE

On the second floor of Autograph ABP, Shoreditch, Aida Silvestri hascreated an exhibition of works to raise awareness of the widespread practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The ‘Unsterile Clinic’ project sees Silvestri interview and photograph women in London who are among the 125 million living globally with the effects of female genital mutilation.

Silvestri captures the women in silhouette to protect their identity, and each photograph is overlaid with a hand-crafted vagina constructed out of leather. The sculptural photo-works are accompanied by text poems based on interviews conducted with participants whose personal testimonies provide harrowing insight into their experiences. Some have since undergone reconstructive or reversal procedures – which part-remedies the physical damage inflicted onto their bodies, yet the psychological and emotive scars remain in perpetuity.