About: Untitled (Senior Thesis)

Untitled [Senior Thesis] was a work of performance art by Aliza Shvarts which she conducted during 2008, the final year of her visual arts degree at Yale University. During the 9 month performance Shvarts inseminated herself, and on the twenty-eighth day of her menstrual cycle, she took herbal medications meant to induce menses or miscarriage (although she never knew if she was pregnant). The piece generated controversy at the time, and considerable debate revolved around whether or not the project was a "hoax" or "creative fiction". In subsequent years, scholars and critics have described that uncertainty as a core part of the work itself.