sophia.slaneymarsch@gmail.com
@sophia.sm_
Junts and Jussies
Recycled denim, zips, stuffing and cloth backing
2025
Series of 30 each aprox 16x12cm
Selected as finalist work for the Fortyfivedownstairs Emerging Art Award 2025
This work brings together an enduring symbol of resilience and femininity with one of our most wasteful material practices: denim. Durable, mass-produced, and endlessly adaptable, denim reflects the strength, diversity, and undervalued labor often associated with vulva owners. Referencing Greg Taylor’s work Cunts and other conversations at MONA, this piece critiques the capitalist tendency to commodify everything - including our bodies.
Each individual Junt/Jussy represents 10,000 tonnes of textile waste produced annually in Australia, collectively totalling a confronting 300,000 tonnes. Materials for this piece were collected roadside, from opshops and gifted from personal collections. The use of thrifted zippers alludes to the myth of the vagina dentata - a vagina with teeth, castrating men and symbolising the monstrous feminine. Simultaneously the zipper acts as an opening that has to be stimulated in order to allow access, playing with modesty vs exposure, as well as the sensual and tactile nature of unzipping pants or arousing a vulva. By reworking and recycling denim, the artist stitches together concerns of environmental degradation, mass production and body politics.