Queer Indigenous Menstruation, Embodied Sovereignty, and the Art of Vanessa Dion Fletcher

Abstract

This paper examines how Queer Indigenous artist, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, mobilizes menstruation as an embodied site of resistance to colonial–patriarchal biopolitical power. Drawing on analyses of Own Your Cervix (an immersive art exhibition), #MenstrualAccessory (a satirical performance piece), and Colonial Comfort (a sculptural installation), the paper argues that Dion Fletcher’s use of menstrual blood functions as both material and method, disrupting biomedical authority, menstrual shame, and respectability politics that regulate Indigenous reproductive bodies. Engaging feminist and decolonial scholarship, including Stoler, Burns, and Black et al., the analysis traces how colonial governance operates through the management of intimacy, hygiene, and visibility. Dion Fletcher’s practice intervenes by reclaiming gynecological tools, rendering menstruation public, and reframing discomfort as a political strategy. These artistic gestures enact embodied sovereignty, challenging colonial regimes of knowledge and reconstituting menstruation as a site of Indigenous feminist agency, relationality, and decolonial resurgence.