***UPDATE***
The Yale Daily News reports that Aliza Shvarts is disputing Yale's announcement that her entire project is a "creative fiction."
.The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman.s body,. Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said in a written statement e-mailed to the News this afternoon.
But Shvarts stood by her project, calling the University.s statement .ultimately inaccurate..
Klasky said Shvarts informed three senior Yale officials today . including two deans . that she neither impregnated herself nor induced any miscarriages. Rather, the entire episode, including a press release describing the exhibition, was .performance art,. Klasky said.
She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art,. Klasky said. .Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns..
But Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly use a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant.
***UPDATE***
The New York Sun reports that Aliza Shvarts' artificial insemination and miscarriage art project is just "creative fiction." Yale University released a statement this afternoon:
"Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art," a Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said. "She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman's body."
Ms. Klasky went on to suggest that Yale would not have permitted a project of the sort described in the student newspaper. "Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns."
Scroll down for the story published by The Yale Daily News on Aliza Shvarts' art project.
And scroll Down For Video of Aliza Shvarts.
Aliza Shvarts, a senior art major at Yale, artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages for her senior art project. The Yale Daily News has more details on Aliza Shvarts' miscarriage art project.
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process....
The display of Aliza Shvarts' project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Shvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Shvarts' self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
Aliza Shvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
Watch video of Aliza Shvarts at a Soapbox Event at Federal Hall In New York on April 5th. "Anybody passing by the Federal Hall on Saturday afternoon could come inside and deliver a speech."
Aliza Shvarts, who graduated as valedictorian of the Los Angeles Buckley School, wrote about first getting her period in the seventh grade.
We were all sitting on the floor of the classroom to watch the movie and I remember attempting to discreetly lie on my belly in hopes that it might go away. Facedown in the scratchy carpet, I tried to figure out was happening to me. My two guesses were 1) appendicitis, and 2) my period. As the Mings were reforming the Chinese Civil Service Examinations, I weighed my options: if it was appendicitis, then either I would have to go to the hospital, or just die, and not have to come back to school in either instance. Of course, if I had gotten my period, then that was another matter--that meant a lot more.
A photo of Aliza Shvarts was found in a 2004 newsletter (PDF) sent out by her high school to announce that she would be getting an award for "good leadership and good citizenship" at her graduation ceremony.