Exhibition Closing: When the Womb is Tender

Tasha Nicolé Burton (b. 1981) is an emerging multidisciplinary artist living in St. Louis, MO. Burton is a self-taught photographer and visual artist who uses various mediums to interrogate, examine, and re-imagine social issues like race, mobility, access, and equality. Her work is human-centered, providing space for new discoveries that can lead society to work better together. She uses images and tangible objects to reveal how we utilize self-awareness to unlearn or course-correct our social interactions. Through dedicated  research and a study of the human mind, her work prioritizes an  ease of understanding and aims to provide a viewer with an alternate perspective. By looking deeper, her practice's goal is to activate change by telling a story that challenges what we have been conditioned to accept. She hopes to generate an appreciation and respect for another person’s struggles, successes, livelihood, agency, and spirit. She has exhibited work with Flood Plain, The Kranzberg Arts Foundation, The Griot Museum of Black History, and University of MO - St. Louis. She is the recipient of The Puffin Foundation, Ltd. Grant, Shift Consulting LLC Mini-grant, and the Black Women Photographers x Nikon USA Grant.

From the artist:

"Tenderness holds two capabilities: one that expresses pain when touched and one that expresses nurturance in response to that pain. These two instincts are formulated and built to alert the consciousness that something is hurt and requires care. In the context of When the Womb Is Tender, we see the progression of this instinct as it evolves.  Uterine fibroids can exist for some time in the womb before showing any signs or symptoms. These signs can be a heavier-than-usual cycle or worsening period cramps. For some, these non-cancerous tumors cause no issues and calcify in the uterus. For many, it causes unbearable pain, fatigue, and depression. You may know some of these people and yet not know that they go to lengths to disguise their condition. These people tend to their bodies seemingly around the clock to ease and subdue their discomfort. This journey comes with intense feelings of embarrassment and shame. The transition from symptoms to bulging and then to scars, as evidenced by surgical procedures, is very challenging and can often feel like navigating a choppy tide in a canoe with only one ore. Then there is the work of proactiveness, the constant worry, and the bias within a failing healthcare system that lies in the scope of being a black or brown person in America. There is post-operative depression, body dysmorphia, and in many cases, coping with the new reality of never bearing children. While everyone’s journey is different, they share a familial relationship with tenderness in the womb. This relationship traverses between the sufferer (self) and carer (also self) for months and sometimes years. Deeply consider the vulnerability before you and the incredible strength required to be intimate and share this tendering with you. With this, I offer a phenomenon for the tender womb that we say in unison: I joyfully receive the mending of my body. And so it is."