Pope Joan had an unusual life. As well as being an highly educated woman, she was an outsider in the Catholic church and took on the guise of a man to achieve her ambitions,until she gave birth to an illegitimate child.
The earlist christian saints were often martyrs who suffered agonising deaths because they refused to worship pagan gods, whereas other christian saints often performed charitable deeds or led isolated lives, taking themselves away from society to live as hermits.
As an example, during Maundy Thursday, the practice of foot washing would only have been practiced by the men, but Pope Joan in her disguise would have undertaken this practice. I have also considered The Holy Eucharist, the most important of the seven sacraments, in which we recieve the body and blood ,soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.
Within my work I have considered these rituals in my research into Pope Joan. For example, my shoes and a Pope’s mitre have been crafted out of wire and rice paper, this rice paper reflecting its use in Holy Communion. As Pope Joan was a woman, I have also made a hat using the same media in the shape of a female pelvis, the rice paper again symbolic of the flesh of Christ. Within this I have also sought to portray the flesh of her child.
