Casey Jenkins

Casey Jenkins (born 1980) is an Australian performance artist based in Melbourne.

Career Jenkins became widely known in 2013, when her performance work Casting Off My Womb caused interest online for what was referred to as "vaginal knitting". Jenkins described the work as "in which I used skeins of wool lodged in my vaginal tunnel to knit a long passage, marking one full menstrual cycle", and inspired a follow-up work Programmed to Reproduce in 2016.

In 2020, Jenkins announced plans to self-inseminate herself as part of an artwork titled Immaculate. The work was supported by funding from South Australia's Vitalstatistix and the Australia Council, Initially, the funding was suspended while the Australia Council sought legal advice, but was officially rescinded soon after, with Australia Council CEO Adrian Collette writing to Jenkins that they "cannot be party to any act that could result in bringing a new life into the world...The possible current and longer-term consequences for the child, the child’s parent and the child’s donor are inappropriate for a corporate government entity to accept."

Jenkins sued the Australia Council in 2021, and clarified that the artwork was a documentation of the process of self-insemination, and not the creation of a child, as she felt had been insinuated by the Australia Council. Previous to the controversy, Jenkins said she planned to conceive when she decided to turn it into an artwork. but was settled out of court in 2023. As part of the settlement, Jenkins was awarded a six-figure sum and publicly apologised to.

Outside of her solo work, Jenkins is cofounder with Rayna Fahey of the craftivism group Craft Cartel which blends craft and activism. They were featured in the 2010 documentary Making It Handmade!

Select work

Casting Off My Womb (2013) at Darwin Visual Arts Association Body of Work (2015) at Dark Horse Experiment Gallery, Melbourne Programmed to Reproduce (2016) at Festival of Live Art Waste Note (2017) at SomoS, Berlin True Colours | True Colors (2019) at Dark Horse Experiment Gallery, Melbourne Immaculate (2020)