Kate Bohunnis’ practice speaks through and against patriarchal definitions of the gendered body. In fill me up and make me useful she presents sculptural forms made from the contrasting mediums of hard, sharp steel and soft, fluffy fabrics, and foreground hand-stitched embroidery that recalls reproductive systems in the abstract and malformed. They inhabit a space between violence and uselessness. Lacking in structural integrity, these forms have lost control and will soon encounter complete dysfunction.

fill me up and make me useful expresses the absurdity of the patriarchal perception of a woman’s body as possessing both inherent physical and cognitive failings. Reducing a body’s value solely to its (assumed) biological potential creates a monolithic body – one that is rendered too biological and therefore too vulnerable for impactful use outside of a reproductive realm and, simultaneously, strips it of cognitive capability.