Sugar Walls Teardom

Tabita Rezaire

Installation
Tabita Rezaire: Sugar Walls Teardom (video stills)
Tabita Rezaire: Sugar Walls Teardom (2020) Window Installation, photo © Patricia Escriche
Tabita Rezaire: Sugar Walls Teardom (2020) Window Installation, photo © Patricia Escriche
Tabita Rezaire: Sugar Walls Teardom (video stills)
Tabita Rezaire: Sugar Walls Teardom (video stills)

“Sugar Walls Teardom” reveals the contributions of Black womxn’s wombs to the advancement of modern medical science and technology.

During slavery, Black women’s bodies were used and abused as commodities for laborious work in plantations, sexual slavery, reproductive exploitation and medical experiments. Anarchia, Betsy and Lucy, were among the captive guinea pigs of Marion Sims, the so-called father of modern gynecology, who tortured countless enslaved womxn in the name of science.

Unacknowledged, Black womxn’s wombs have been central to the biomedical economy, as the story of Henrietta Lacks, whose stolen cervix cells lead to medical breakthroughs, reminds us, biological warfare against Black womxn is still pervasive in today’s pharmaceutical industry.

“Sugar Walls Teardom” celebrates womb technology through an account of coercive anatomic politics and pays homage to these wombs; their contributions have not been forgotten.