April 19th, 2026
Sunrise-Sunset
Boulder, CO
Creator/Performer
Blood Witness was Sheppard's first solo performance. This 13-hour-long endurance performance art explored the cycles of blood within a lifetime: past, present, future. In a world that diminishes the power of being witnessed, transitions become ignored, creating dangerous separations marked by silence, confusion, shame, and death. Those who felt called sat with Vox Hymen (Sheppard), a mythical goddess, to be witnesses. Once Vox felt the connection with the witnessed she/they painted a mark with menstruated blood and beet juice to bring that connection into a creative expression of wholeness. Blood Witness was inspired by Case Sheppard’s (she/her) personal struggles of transition throughout blood cycles — including menstruation, perimenopause, and iron deficiency — along with the fighting blood inherited in her veins of spilling blood and blood spilt. Blood remains taboo, especially within relation to mense, femininity, and BIPOC communities. This was a witness, a transformation, and a celebration.
Vox Hymen's Myth:
She can heal blood, spill blood, and have her blood spilt or freely given. She desires to be human due to the pain of eternal life. There is no sacred within eternity, all is taken for granted. Her womb is human, given to her by three crows with diamonds for eyes, as a offering of experience within the sacred. Yet a womb can not live without a heart, so an old and wise magpie followed the crows with this gift. Finally, paths to connect the heart and the womb, so they may be seen, was given to her by a very small red fox and a blue water serpent.
