The diagnosis began a period of research in which I moved between medical information, histories of women’s health, writing on pain and care, and accounts of the ways gynaecological conditions have been dismissed or poorly understood. Making became a way of working through this material and finding connections between what I was reading and what I had experienced.

As I read, I began collecting images and symbols that stayed with me. Goddess forms, moons, flowers and internal organs sit alongside the Rod of Asclepius and scales of justice. I wanted anatomical, spiritual and social references to coexist, allowing the body to be approached through more than a medical language alone. This became the beginning of a symbolic vocabulary that I continued to develop in later works.

The history of the room divider was important to my choice of form. These objects have long created privacy and divided interiors, while their panels have also carried decoration, imagery and narrative. I was interested in bringing those functions together. The curved frame allowed the story to unfold gradually across separate surfaces as someone moved around the work.

For the textile panels, I developed a process using narrow offcuts of Burel wool. I arranged and compressed the strips within the steel frames, using them almost like drawn lines to build raised bodily, botanical and organic forms. Pearl headed pins remain embedded in the wool as traces of how the compositions were held and made. I was drawn to the warmth and density of the textile against the precision and hardness of the steel.

The aged mirrors introduce a quieter, more fluid material. Their clouded surfaces reminded me of foaming water and connected to the oceanic language of the title. They interrupt the denser textile and cut steel panels, changing the rhythm and texture of the work as someone moves around it.

The laser cut panels allow the symbolic imagery to become part of the structure itself. The openings make the steel more porous and, when the work happens to be lit from behind, the symbols can cast shadows into the surrounding space. This was not an effect I designed the work around, but I like that the imagery can occasionally move beyond the divider and appear elsewhere in the room.

What I had not anticipated was how readily the work would invite conversation. Women approached me when it was exhibited, recognising particular symbols or forms through their own experiences and sharing stories about illness, pain and not feeling believed. The work had begun during my own process of discovery, but these encounters opened it towards experiences beyond my own.

Those conversations later became an important starting point for Chronicles of Resilience. With the room divider, other experiences entered through conversation. In Chronicles, I wanted to take that exchange further and create a structure in which other people could contribute directly to the artwork.

I Go to the Depth of the Ocean Within the Body of a Woman marks the beginning of a visual and material language in my practice for approaching women’s health. The room divider allowed research, personal experience and symbolic form to gather in one object, while leaving space for other meanings and conversations to enter.