Beatrix Villiers

GlogauAIR Project

My proposed residency project stems from my personal experience living with PCOS, a hormonal condition that has profoundly shaped my understanding of the body as both vulnerable and profoundly powerful. Through years of navigating the medical system and the silence surrounding underrepresented / under-researched health issues, I’ve come to understand the body as a site of metamorphosis as opposed to something fixed. My project aims to expand beyond the scope of PCOS to a collective exploration of what it means to inhabit a body in constant flux, a body that is constantly in the process of self destruction, yet continually renews itself regardless. PCOS is just one of many underrepresented health experiences affecting primarily those assigned female at birth, such as endometriosis, chronic pain, hormonal imbalance, reproductive disorders, and the many invisible conditions that remain understudied, misunderstood, or dismissed within patriarchal medical systems.

My project seeks to examine how discomfort, pain, and perceived imbalance can also be sources of creativity and connection. Drawing inspiration from Proto Indo-European Neolithic cultures, where fertility, ritual, and earth were intertwined, through an understanding that humanity and the natural world are deeply connected. By reclaiming these symbols through contemporary feminist and philosophical perspectives, this project becomes both a healing gesture and a critique of how our modern society defines health, beauty, and worth. In today’s world, our bodies exist increasingly estranged from the natural cycles that once grounded human life. Technology mediates our rhythms and urbanization and environmental collapse distance us from the ecosystems we depend on. Yet the biological processes that define us, like menstruation, hormonal shifts, cellular regeneration, all remain deeply ecological. Through painting, sculpture, video, and screenprinting I aim to explore this paradox. In particular, how contemporary embodiment is both synthetic and organic, alienated yet inseparable from nature. In sharing my personal journey, I hope to dissolve shame and reimagine illness as a catalyst for connection, wisdom, and creative metamorphosis.