"Sending baby dust to you all..."
Storing
Storing




Storing
"Sending baby dust to you all..."
Printed and sanded text on paper
2024


Real tangible archives have items that must be conserved and protected from damage, caused by the dust that gathers around its edges. But leafing through the pages of the virtual fertility forum, I unearthed an archive that gathers its very own dust. Not insignificant dirt to be brushed away, rather a special type of “baby dust” that has been permitted to settle. These supposedly harmless words are a representation of good luck, that are frequently endowed upon or requested from others in metaphorical exchange between users. This simple phrase has led my investigations into this textual metaphor and the search for what this means for an infertile subjectivity.

Should we also swiftly discard of this dust, such a light whimsical way of describing the weighted process? Invisible, but far from meaningless, this baby dust can bring its own dangers; a magical granting power contributing to a harmful culture that women experiencing infertility can find themselves swept up in, where they are led to believe that if they just wish hard enough (perhaps if they really want it enough?!), then it will happen.

However, this piece speculates and investigates with deeper examination whether this imaginary substance also comes heavy with hope, a real symbol of these women’s reproductive desires for the presence of (an)other, that resides beneath the maternal wish accruing on the surface. I wanted to explore gaps in meaning that open through this figurative language; what important embodied knowledges are revealed within this seemingly insignificant metaphor that may provide distance from an (unspeakable) truth - of real hope; of the loss of hope; of the loss of something that never was and that may never be.

I print out the digital text onto paper and dialogue with past erasure practices in conceptual art, led by men, where an image is created through the playful removal, rather than addition, of marks. But I want to give value to these processes beyond play, to consider the very real erasure of these women as I sand way well-rehearsed scripts in my attempt to remove the words of a narrated performance of a medicalised infertility that has moved beyond the clinical encounter to pervade everyday life.

I try to leave behind those muted words of hope and uncertainty, to reveal what is unseen and unsaid beneath visible public maternal and bio-medical discourse, seeking moments for women to own their de-objectified bodily narratives. But the presence of the erased experience remains ever visible as a disordered grey smudge, the evidence ingrained on paper that is torn and tarnished with the sediments of a process.

The rejected fragments now present themselves as a new dust, real and dirty looking, weighted with a muddied medical might of which I want to discard, but instead methodically categorise in my lunar shaped pallet, knowing that dust can never completely disappear. I store the remnants, as both become the body of the work in progress, a representation of these women’s hidden reproductive experiences.



© Sally Butcher 2025





Storing




Storing
"Sending baby dust to you all..."
Printed and sanded text on paper
2024


Real tangible archives have items that must be conserved and protected from damage, caused by the dust that gathers around its edges. But leafing through the pages of the virtual fertility forum, I unearthed an archive that gathers its very own dust. Not insignificant dirt to be brushed away, rather a special type of “baby dust” that has been permitted to settle. These supposedly harmless words are a representation of good luck, that are frequently endowed upon or requested from others in metaphorical exchange between users. This simple phrase has led my investigations into this textual metaphor and the search for what this means for an infertile subjectivity.

Should we also swiftly discard of this dust, such a light whimsical way of describing the weighted process? Invisible, but far from meaningless, this baby dust can bring its own dangers; a magical granting power contributing to a harmful culture that women experiencing infertility can find themselves swept up in, where they are led to believe that if they just wish hard enough (perhaps if they really want it enough?!), then it will happen.

However, this piece speculates and investigates with deeper examination whether this imaginary substance also comes heavy with hope, a real symbol of these women’s reproductive desires for the presence of (an)other, that resides beneath the maternal wish accruing on the surface. I wanted to explore gaps in meaning that open through this figurative language; what important embodied knowledges are revealed within this seemingly insignificant metaphor that may provide distance from an (unspeakable) truth - of real hope; of the loss of hope; of the loss of something that never was and that may never be.

I print out the digital text onto paper and dialogue with past erasure practices in conceptual art, led by men, where an image is created through the playful removal, rather than addition, of marks. But I want to give value to these processes beyond play, to consider the very real erasure of these women as I sand way well-rehearsed scripts in my attempt to remove the words of a narrated performance of a medicalised infertility that has moved beyond the clinical encounter to pervade everyday life.

I try to leave behind those muted words of hope and uncertainty, to reveal what is unseen and unsaid beneath visible public maternal and bio-medical discourse, seeking moments for women to own their de-objectified bodily narratives. But the presence of the erased experience remains ever visible as a disordered grey smudge, the evidence ingrained on paper that is torn and tarnished with the sediments of a process.

The rejected fragments now present themselves as a new dust, real and dirty looking, weighted with a muddied medical might of which I want to discard, but instead methodically categorise in my lunar shaped pallet, knowing that dust can never completely disappear. I store the remnants, as both become the body of the work in progress, a representation of these women’s hidden reproductive experiences.



© Sally Butcher 2025