Flos Pavonis (2023)

In Flos Pavonis, Aya Momose follows a film correspondence format, which has been used traditionally in Japanese diary films. This film narrates the ongoing repressive control over the female body in two culturally distant countries, Poland and Japan, during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Flos pavonis” is a herb that was used as an abortifacient by enslaved Black women with unwanted pregnancies under colonial rule. In 2021, Poland had just made abortion illegal, and in Japan people’s activities continued to be limited by the pandemic. A story of their own bodies being oppressed is told through the email correspondence of two women in these countries. This work (by the up-and-coming visual and performance artist Momose) centers on a sense of alienation in gendered and sexualized society.