Nilla Heikkilä

Natural Breeding Machinetells the story of a woman’s reproductive life. It is a story of society’s expectations and the loss of power over one’s own body. The collection is presented in a film form that is shot in five chapters, starting from adolescence, ending at birth, taking inspiration from body horror. The collection explores the way how, under patriarchy, the female body has been fetishised for its fragility, exploited for its perceived weakness, punished for its power to seduce, and manipulated for its ability to create labour. Inspiration for the techniques used in the collection came from body restrictions and grotesque aesthetics, returning to the body horror film tropes. The body is bound by corset lacings, and the protruding body is created by paddings and bonings, inspired by historical garments that were used to restrict women’s everyday life, re-imagined into a deformed body.