I've posted about this project previously (link), but it's come up again - two students passed along a link to a recent article in Cosmopolitan.
From Cosmopolitan:
McCartney says the vagina has become something that companies have begun shaming people for so they can make money off of them by telling the they need to have surgery to make it look better, saying, "I do believe that cosmetic surgery is a fairly unnecessary procedure, it's a psychological problem. There's a whole industry base set up to persuade women they're defective and to give them an answer." He says he gets letters almost daily from women wanting to volunteer or who have told him that his artwork has helped with the anxiety they had surrounding the appearance of their vaginas.
[...]
His hope is that the project will help women of all ages (which is something that is desperately needed), since he says, "every generation is going to go through the same anxieties, every girl is going to think, 'Oh my god, what's wrong with me'."
And his artist statement:
For this, my latest major sculpture, I cast, over the course of 5 years, the vaginas (well the vulva area in fact) of hundreds of volunteers. The Great Wall of Vagina is an exploration of women's relationships with their genitals. When I assembled the first panel of 40 casts in summer 2008, I stepped back disappointed. I realised the sculpture would need to be much bigger to have the impact I wanted. From this original piece (called Design A Vagina) has grown an epic sculpture. The final piece now has 400 casts arranged in 10 panels of 40.
"Why did I do it and what's it all about?" I hear you ask. Well, it became clear to me whilst working on a not dissimilar piece for a sex museum that many women have anxiety about their genital appearance. It appalled me that our society has created yet one more way to make women feel bad about themselves. I decided that I was uniquely placed to do something about it.
The sculpture comments on the trend for surgery to create the 'perfect' vagina. This modern day equivalent of female genital mutilation is a bizarre practice which suggests that one is better than another. Taste in nothing is universal and any desire for 'homogyny' could be very misguided. 400 casts arranged in this manner is in no way pornographic, as it might have been if photographs had been used. One is able to stare without shame but in wonder and amazement at this exposé of human variety. For the first time for many women they will be able to see their own genitals in relation to other women's. In doing so they may dispel many misconceptions they may have been carrying about what women look like 'down there'. The sculpture is serene and intricate and it works on many levels.