Jamie McCartney, The Great Wall of Vagina (2008), Photos via ArtNet

The Great Wall of Vulva

There was a moment where hundreds of casted vulvas rewired how many folks understood anatomy.

If most of what we’re taught about genitalia comes from hyper-curated media, medical charts, or heavily edited fantasy, how often do we actually encounter the full, lived spectrum of real bodies? How often are we allowed to look without being told what’s “normal,” desirable, or correct?

This chapter of Casting Histories looks at genital casting as something more intimate and more radical!

How a Sex-Ed Commission Became a Cultural Landmark

In the early 2000s, British sculptor Jamie McCartney was commissioned to create realistic anatomical casts of breasts, vulvas, penises for a sex education museum. What he encountered during the casting process surprised him: many of the women volunteering expressed anxiety about how their genitals looked.

Pornography, cosmetic surgery trends, and narrow cultural imagery had convinced many folks that their bodies were wrong. McCartney realized that a single model wouldn’t counter decades of visual conditioning, so he kept casting and casting.

From 2006 through 2011, the project grew into a monumental installation. 400 plaster casts of vulvas were created with the consent of volunteers aged 18 to 76, including mothers and daughters, identical twins, trans participants, and folks before and after labiaplasty. What emerged was that variation is the rule, rather than exception.

Historically, genital casting lived in limited spaces like medical archives, private studios and collections. “The Great Wall of Vulva” moved those casts into public view with a clear educational purpose, and to counter the rise of cosmetic genital surgery, and address the shame many people carry about their bodies.

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