Community Gallery

Before The Blood

Anarcha’s Gallery, October 2025 - January 2026

When did we have our first period? Who was with us? What did we know? How did it change us? What remedies do we use for pain or fatigue? Who are our confidantes? What do we teach our children? What cultural wisdom can we reclaim in remembrance?

This is a community project developed and delivered in collaboration with Nisaba, a menstrual health charity committed to menstrual justice for migrants including refugees and people seeking asylum living in the UK. In coming together and having these conversations, stories emerged. Stories of periods suffered in silence and solitude; wisdom passed down from mothers or snippets of information passed between cousins; menarche experienced in the company of only a stoic father on one extreme and the whole village on the other. Far from painting a unified picture, our respective stories illustrated the breadth of lived experiences from culture to culture, country to country.