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2019-09-13 Novem
Jiménez Chagoya, Claudia
Jiménez Chagoya, C. (2019). Novem (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/110988 master thesis
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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
Novem
by
Claudia Jiménez Chagoya
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL
FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ART
CALGARY, ALBERTA
SEPTEMBER, 2019
© Claudia Jiménez Chagoya 2019
Abstract
Keywords: Violence against women, Feminicide, mourning as activism, textiles.
Novem addresses the aftermath of Feminicide in Mexico. Feminicide is the killing of women because of their gender, in which outrageous acts of violence are visible. The term
“feminicide” encompasses the imbalance of the gender power structures, and the corruption and neglect from the authorities surrounding these murders, manifesting in thousands of women and girls being killed each year. This attitude of neglect deeply affects the grieving processes of the families of the victims, hindering their possibility of overcoming the tragedy.
The disruption of grieving processes is part of the aftermath of Feminicide, and I address it through textiles and materials rooted in my Mexican cultural background: rebozos crystallized with salt. The rebozo is a rectangular shawl associated with women’s gender roles and death practices. Salt is a purifying element linked to the belief that it prevents the souls of the deceased from being “corrupted” when they visit the realm of the living during
Day of the Dead celebrations. I use these elements to subvert the negative portrayal of victims, and to enable activism and social engagement through the contemplation of mourning rituals within an artistic practice.
Novem aims to create an experiential space wherein the silence of mourning, and painful whispered prayers mix, as viewers witness the works. My intention is to provide a quiet environment for contemplation and for sharing the distress and anguish of grieving families in Mexico. The ritualized processes used throughout my practice emphasize the conflicting, interrupted and unresolved emotions associated with Feminicide.
ii Acknowledgements
As this thesis project’s long-term goal is to foster supportive community engagement, it requires to build respectful relationships between communities. I would like to begin this section by acknowledging the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in
Southern Alberta, which includes the Siksika, the Piikuni, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina and the
Stoney Nakoda First Nations, including Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations. The
City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.
I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Michele Hardy, and committee member Dr
Jennifer Eiserman, for all the support that you so kindly gave me throughout this journey, and the exceptional knowledge that you shared with me. Your expertise and feedback were invaluable for the completion of this project. I would like to thank Dr Jean-René Leblanc as well, for his participation as internal examiner, your input was greatly appreciated.
I would also like to acknowledge the Art Department staff, administrative, technicians, and professors, for their guidance in the program. I appreciate the support and assistance that I received from all of you throughout the process of this dissertation and the
MFA program.
I want to thank the office of the Vice-President for the support I received through the
Thesis/Dissertation Research Grant, that helped me with the completion of this project.
A big thanks to my fellow MFA’s. Their friendship and help, made it easier for me to adapt to a new environment and a new chapter in my life. I would like to specially thank
Avril Lopez, Eve Chartrand, Gerry Straathof for their support and their help in this final exhibition.
And finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my mother, Marcela, I’m profoundly grateful for everything you have done for me. This project, and the new ones on
iii the horizon, wouldn’t be possible without your infinite love and support. Te quiero mucho
Mamá.
iv Dedication
To my mom:
May this help soothe a long-opened wound.
v Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..ii
Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………….iii
Dedication ………………………………………………………………………………….v
Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………vi
List of Figures and Illustrations………………………………………………………...….viii
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….1
CHAPTER 1: REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN AND FEMINICIDE IN MEXICO…..6
Image of women in Mexico………………………………………………………….6
Dehumanization and justification of violence………………………………………..9
Femicide vs Feminicide…………………………………………………………….11
Feminicide Statistics………………………………………………………………..12
Public Women and their double lives……………………………………………….12
Struggle to Memorialize ……………………………………………………………14
Disenfranchised Grief………………………………………………………………17
Ambiguous Loss……………………………………………………………………19
CHAPTER 2: ASPECTS OF THE ARTWORK: THEORY, METHODOLOGY, AND
ARTISTIC INFLUENCES…………………………………………………………………22
Theoretical Approach………………………………………………………………22
Methodology……………………………………………………………………….24
Doris Salcedo………………………………………………………………………25
Teresa Margolles…………………………………………………………………...28
Christi Belcourt…………………………………………………………………….29
Jaime Black…………………………………………………………………………32
vi Past Iterations………………………………………………………………………33
Untitled/Unnoticed…………………………………………………………………34
Quotidian Patterns………………………………………………………………….36
Unweaving Foundations……………………………………………………………41
CHAPTER 3: NOVEM…………………………………………………………………….46
Día de Muertos ……………………………………………………………………..47
Novem/Nine………………………………………………………………………..48
Salt and Water……………………………………………………………………....49
Rebozos.……………………………………………………………………………51
Ritualized Process…………………………………………………………………..52
The Installation……………………………………………………………………..54
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….57
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………….61
vii List of Figures and Illustrations
CHAPTER 1: REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN AND FEMINICIDE IN MEXICO
Figure 1: Inocencia Alterada, 2017. Paper cast. Variable dimensions. Detail of the exhibition. (p. 6)
Figure 2: Inocencia Alterada, 2017. Paper cast. Variable dimensions. Detail. (p. 7)
Figure 3: Living Altar on Friday of Sorrow at San Miguel de Allende 2016. (p. 8)
Figure 4: Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974. (p. 10)
Figura 5: Verónica Leiton, Flor de Arena, 2009. The artist and the grieving families at the second unveiling of the monument on 2012. (p. 16)
CHAPTER 2: ASPECTS OF THE ARTWORK: THEORY, METHODOLOGY, AND
ARTISTIC INFLUENCES
Figure 6: Doris Salcedo. A flor de piel, 2014. Rose Petals. 12 feet 2 13/16 inches x 92 1/16 inches. (p. 26)
Figure 7: Doris Salcedo. Palimpsest, 2018. Detail of the Exhibition. (p. 27)
Figure 8: Teresa Margolles. Plancha, 2010. Metal plates and water. (p. 29)
Figure 9: Christi Belcourt. Walking With Our Sisters. 2012. (p. 30)
Figure 10: Elina Chauvet. Zapatos Rojos (Red Shoes). 2009. (p. 31)
Figure 11: Jaime Black. REDress Project. 2014. (p. 32)
Figure 12: Untitled/Unnoticed, 2017. Womenswear, cotton thread. Technique: Intervention of used women’s clothes and embroidery. Variable dimensions. (p. 35).
Figure 13: Untitled/Unnoticed, 2017. Synthetic fabric night slip, cotton threads, wire, ribbon, embroidery hoops and needle. Technique: Intervention of used women’s clothes and embroidery. 59” x 10” x 8”. Detail of the exhibition. (p. 36)
viii Figure 14: Untitled/Unnoticed, 2017. Long slip skirt, wire, ribbon, needles and polyester thread. Technique: Intervention of used women’s clothes and embroidery. 27.5” x 10.5” x
11.5”. Detail of the exhibition. (p. 36)
Figure 15: Untitled/Unnoticed, 2017. Synthetic fabric night slip, wire, ribbon, pins and polyester thread. Technique: Intervention of used women’s clothes and embroidery. 27.5” x
9.5” x 8”. Detail of the exhibition. (p. 36)
Figure 16: Quotidian Patterns, 2018. synthetic fabric and cotton thread. Technique: Etching on zinc plate and embroidery. 30’ x 25”. (p. 37)
Figure 17: Quotidian Patterns, 2018. Synthetic fabric and cotton thread. Technique: Etching on zinc plate and embroidery. 30’ x 25”. Detail of the exhibition. (p. 39).
Figure 18: Unweaving Foundations, 2018. Rayon rebozos and Copal. 6.5’ x 8’. (p. 41).
Figure 19: Unweaving Foundations, 2018. Rayon rebozos and Copal. 6.5’ x 8’. Detail of the exhibition. (p. 43).
CHAPTER 3: NOVEM
Figure 20: Novem (in process), 2019. Art Silk Rebozos and salt. Variable dimensions. (p.
47).
Figure 21: Novem (in process), 2019. Art Silk Rebozos and salt. Detail of the installation.
(p. 50).
Figure 22: Novem (in process), 2019. Art Silk Rebozos and salt. Detail of the installation.
(p. 52).
ix INTRODUCTION
Our very humanity resides within the devotion or contempt that we assign to our practices, processes, and rituals of mourning. An aesthetic view of death reveals an ethical view of life, and it is for this reason that there is nothing more human than mourning. Doris Salcedo, “A Work in Mourning”.
Within my art practice I have engaged with topics such as the diverse, ingrained, misogynistic understanding of women prevalent in Mexican society, and the violence waged against them stemming from these assumptions. My thesis project titled Novem, reflects upon the aftermath of feminicide and complex grieving derived from it. The exhibition consists of a series of nine hanging rebozos1 in different stages of deconstruction that are crystallized with salt. A piece also made with rebozos and salt, which resembles hair, lays on the floor of the gallery supported by a round plinth. Another work consists of unravelled rebozos submerged in a saline solution, and beside it there is a chalice with salt. The piece invites the viewer to make a small gesture of sympathy by adding a pinch of salt to the water. An audio that consists of almost unintelligible prayers creates a cohesive space within the gallery.
In the first chapter I will discuss feminicide, an extreme act of violence committed against women. Shalva Weil presented the definition of femicide as the killing of women and girls because of their gender, in which outrageous acts of violence are visible. In Spanish- speaking countries the variant feminicidio or feminicide is used more commonly. Moreover, the term expands its meaning to encompass a context of impunity and negligence that prevails throughout Mexico. This corruption is reflected in the number of women murdered each year.
For example, in January to September 2018, where 2,034 feminicides were registered (Soto
Azúa 2018, 1).
1 Woven shawls from Mexico, predominantly used by women.
1 An important aspect to note is the sexist claims about the victims uttered by police officers and government workers. Accusations such as how the victims tempted the perpetrators with the way they were dressed, or by the simple fact of being in the street when they were abducted and murdered, are common. Wright addresses this phenomenon and introduces the term “Public Women”, which refers negatively to women outside the domestic sphere. This concept implies that those women found on the streets are considered prostitutes, regardless if they are students or workers (Wright 2006, 682). Many families have encountered these sexist claims, tainting the image of the victims and downplaying the importance of their cases. they also deeply affect the process of mourning for the bereaved families.
The main foci of my research are the strong emotions and the interrupted grief experienced by the families of the victims. Their pain can alter the interactions between family members, alienate them from society, and cause depression and anxiety. The uncertainty that plagues feminicide cases will be explained further in chapter 1, explaining in-depth notions of disenfranchisement of grief and ambiguous loss. Both concepts discuss the complications of grieving violent deaths, thus involve feelings of something unresolved, being ostracized from society, deprived of the right to grieve, and insensitive treatment.
In the second chapter, I will discuss the theories and methodologies that I use in my research-creation process. Based on affective theory in conjunction with forensic aesthetics.
I base my theoretical approach on Jill Bennet’s Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and
Contemporary Art. Affective theory is relevant to my practice because it looks for empathic responses rather than communicating a message. It “is best understood as transactive rather than communicative. It often touches us, but it does not necessarily communicate the “secret”
2 of personal experience” (Bennett 2005, 7). In addition to this approach, I discuss its relation to Forensic Aesthetics, as a transformation of traumatic experiences into art.
My methodology is based in research-for-creation and autoethnography. My artistic process starts by gathering information, materials, concepts, and techniques. In this collection of data, autoethnography plays an important role in my methodology. It is defined as “the approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experience in order to understand cultural experience” (Ellis et al. 2011). As a Mexican artist, these approaches encourage me to understand my experiences, observations and cultural impact in order to connect my art to a broader context.
In addition to the process of gathering of information, another important part of this method is the recollection of artistic influences. I am particularly inspired by artists such as
Doris Salcedo, Teresa Margolles, Christi Belcourt, and Jaime Black. They influence my practice in relation to materials, forms of representation, connection between concepts and metaphors, and the social engagement that their pieces generate. In this second chapter I will introduce my past iterations on this subject, and how they progressively led me to my thesis project Novem. These iterations are Untitled/Unnoticed (2017), Quotidian Patterns (2018) and Unweaving Foundations (2018). The first, explores textiles as embodiments of violence and pain. The second, examines the representation of the quotidian pattern that feminicide has become. And the third, creates a shroud that shows the disintegration of Mexico’s infrastructure, due to systematic violence.
The research on all these sources that informed my artistic practice led me to formulate my research question: How can my art enhance the understanding of the effects of feminicide on families? To answer this question, I need to acknowledge first that grief is experienced differently by each individual, but it is also a shared emotion (Derrida, 2001,
3 22). Every form of mourning is unique and as the quote from artist Doris Salcedo, presented in the epigraph, suggests our inherent characteristics as human beings are reflected on the empathetic responses that we show towards mourning practices and the pain of the bereaved
(Salcedo et al. 2015, 215). For this reason, the third chapter of this supporting paper is dedicated to addressing the process and the elements involved in my thesis exhibition Novem, in order to answer my research question.
In the third chapter I will discuss the title’s reference to the Catholic mourning ritual called novenario, in juxtaposition with indigenous myths about the journey of the souls to the Aztec land of the dead. “Novem” which means ‘nine’ in Latin, references the nine days of praying that the bereaved perform after the wake and burial of the deceased. It also references the nine levels of Mictlán, the Aztec underworld, that the souls need to cross to arrive at their final resting place. I will also discuss the importance of the materials that I use and their deeper connections to the Mexican context of mourning. Those materials are rebozos, a traditional woven garment used predominantly by women in Mexico, and salt a purifying element present in rituals and traditions related to the Day of the Dead.
The importance of addressing feminicide and violence against women is because of their global prevalence. In Canada exists ongoing violence against Indigenous People and thousands of cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. In Mexico and
Canada, feminicide cases have their own particularities depending on their context, and are mourned according to different cultural traditions. However, the pain and grief of such loss are broadly shared. Finding commonalities can become the foundation of supportive communities for families in both countries.
The goal of Novem, therefore, is to transcend borders through aesthetic, emotional and affective experiences. By achieving so, viewers can identify within the pieces their own
4 ritual practices and forms of remembrance, triggering sympathetic responses. Empathy is the way to create affinity and community, something that is necessary for grieving families.
5 CHAPTER 1: REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN AND FEMINICIDE IN MEXICO
Image of women in Mexico
Living in Mexico most of my life, I grew up between two narrow stereotypes of women: the saint and the prostitute. These oppressive and binary constructs were imposed by friends, school, religion and even my own family, in direct and subtle ways. For this reason, during my undergraduate studies I started questioning the social construction of gender identity among young women and girls.
Consequently, my BFA project focused on how girls develop physically and psychologically in an environment where these two opposites collide. Each of them are enforced by two influences: the Catholic church and the media. The first one, endorsing the virginal and pure woman epitomized by the Virgin Mary, and the second, the promiscuous
woman, in which her objectification is
disguised as female empowerment. I
focused on the church and the media
because of their scope in Mexican society:
the Catholic church because of its
widespread religious environment; and the
media because of the constant influx of
images of hyper sexualized women on tv,
social media, and advertisements.
Figure 1
6 For this project, titled Inocencia Alterada
(Altered Innocence, 2017), I surveyed 193 girls aged between 10 and 12 years old from six different schools, both public and private. The questionnaire asked about their preferences regarding music, tv shows, social media, clothing, and included a drawing section where they had to answer two questions: How do you perceive yourself? And how would you like to be Figure 2 perceived? This last section was the most useful because it helped me see the way Media and peer pressure effected the responses of the girls.
Based on the answers, I created 30 unique cast paper sculptures of girls mimicking fashion models’ poses, and 193 faces with reproductions of the drawings of each surveyed girl
(Figures 1 & 2). The drawings revealed the tendencies to focus on their appearance and in some cases their discomfort with their current selves. Several, for example, depicted their ideal selves as blonde.
It is important to mention that the study was done in San Miguel de Allende,
Guanajuato, the city where I lived for 7 years, and one where the Church has a particularly strong influence on society. The Church’s impact involves frequent religious ceremonies, some of them include children playing biblical characters; girls in particular representing angels and diverse depictions of the Virgin Mary. An example of this is the “living altar” that
7 is set up during the Friday of Sorrows,2 where young girls are selected to represent the
Sorrowful Mother (Jimenez 2017, 17). (Figure 3.)
The Media on the other hand, enforces the
objectification of women through music, tv shows,
publicity, and websites, among others. An example
of this binary vision of women is the music video
of Mexican rapper Maniako, titled “esta puta vida”
(this fucking life), that was mentioned by one of the
surveyed girls in my BFA project. The video talks
about the singer’s addictions and how they affected
his life, specially with methamphetamine. It
contains short clips of a documentary where Figure 3 children no older than 15 talk about the effects and deprivation of drug. One young boy states his perception on women: “las putas y las mujeres son lo mismo, ¿no?... lo que una mujer vale, sea de casa o sea de calle” (Bañuelos S’ 2015, min. 3:09-3:18), which roughly translates to “whores and women are same, aren’t they?... whatever a woman is worth, be from the household or the street”. Because of the awkward editing of the video and the clips cut from the documentary, it is difficult to know exactly the context of such statement. In any case, if the child is referring to drugs, he may be comparing the price of meth to the price of a sex worker. His perception of the worth of a woman is comparable to that of an object. This deplorable way of thinking about women and its perpetuation in society leaves no space in
2 A solemn ceremony in Catholicism in remembrance of the sorrows that the Virgin Mary suffered. Also, it marks the beginning of the Holy week culminating in Easter Sunday.
8 between two extreme categorizations. They undermine women’s autonomy over their own sexuality.
It is important to note that Maniako and similar rappers are part of Rap Malandro
(thug rap) scene from Guadalajara. The genre embodies a paradox, while most of the lyrics reference drug abuse, violence and murder, it also provides an alternative for youths to escape drug cartels’ recruitment (Woodman 2019). Despite that, their songs still contain sexist messages. In a 2018 video by the same singer, titled “No olvido a mi ex” (I can’t forget my ex), he describes how much he longs to be with his ex-girlfriend again. Not because of her personality or any other remarkable traits, but because he enjoyed having sex with her. The lyrics once again reflect these binary constructions: “ella es pura dinamita, sin sentimientos al sexo ella es adicta. Vida, loca maldita, me paraliza… mija le toca ir a misa-lchicha… de día es un ángel de noche una diabla” (Bañuelos S’ 2018, min. 1:50-2:23), which translates to “she is pure dynamite, without feelings she’s a sex addict. Life, damn crazy woman, she paralyzes me… mija3 you have to go to ‘mass’… by day is an angel, at night a devil”. Once again, the conception of a virtuous woman collides with the promiscuous one, directly and indirectly. Directly by addressing the woman as an angel and a devil, and indirectly by the ironic sexual innuendo hidden in the word play that involves going to mass.
Dehumanization and justification of violence
This view dehumanizes women. It’s unsettling that children are growing up with these conceptions. Furthermore, if on one hand girls are encouraged to act overly sexual, objectify themselves, and adopt behaviors beyond their appropriate age, and on the other hand, boys
3 Short form for ‘daughter’ and used to address a young woman even if they are not actually related, which depending on the context, can be patronizing or affectionate.
9 are taught that is okay to treat women as objects, the sum of these influences is building the justification of future violence.
This led me to question what happens when a person is deprived of their human qualities, and their agency is undermined. Would it be easier to inflict violence upon a non- sentient object? An example of this is artist Marina Abramović’s performance piece Rhythm
0 (1974). Here the artist offered herself to a crowd and invited them to interact with her body using 72 objects arranged on a table. These included a rose, a feather, knives and even a loaded gun. She stood still throughout the whole performance even as it became violent.
Some of the viewers started to inflict pain on her dehumanized body, while others tried to defend her. The performance concluded with a member of the audience pointing the gun she had provided towards the artist’s head (Figure 4). Like a social experiment, this performance reflects what I consider to be happening in Mexico with the excessive violence to which women are subjected, which I suggest has led to its utmost outcome: femicide.
Figure 4
10 Femicide vs Feminicide
Femicide is a hate crime committed against a woman on account of her gender. Shalva Weil presented a broad definition of the term during The General Assembly of the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime in its 57th session in 2014, as “a ‘gender-related killing of women and girls’… [that] can be distinguished according to type. It includes so-called ‘honour’ femicides, sex selection before birth, dowry marriage femicides and a host of other manifestations of extreme violence culminating in the death of a woman” (Weil 2016, 1128).
The variant feminicidio is more often used in Spanish-speaking countries, where it expands its meaning to encompass socio-political contexts. For example, it references particular
States’ actions that discourage society from taking responsibility or even caring about the issue (Marcuello-Servós et al. 2016). Building on femicide’s definition, Rosa Linda Fregoso et al define feminicidio/feminicide in their book Terrorizing women: Feminicide in the
Américas, as:
[First] The murders of women and girls founded on a gender power structure. Second, Feminicide is gender-based violence that is both public and private, implicating both the state (directly or indirectly) and individual perpetrators (private or state actors); it thus encompasses systematic, widespread, and everyday interpersonal violence. Third, feminicide is systematic violence rooted in social, political, economic, and cultural inequalities. (Fregoso & Bejarano 2010, 5).
Based on this definition and what it encompasses, I find it relevant and more appropriate to address the issue throughout this text as feminicide instead of femicide. Not only because feminicide is broader but, because it also encompasses other related difficulties for those grieving the victims, as well as the ambiguity and mixed emotions it produces. In addition, this form helped me stay true to my cultural background and my language’s roots.
11 Feminicide Statistics
The Mexican government’s lack of interest in feminicide is reflected in its high rates.
Thousands of women are murdered each year. According to the data collected by the
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (National Institute of Statistic and Geography) in 2015 2,383 women were murdered, while in 2016 this number increased to 2,813; this represents an average of 7 women murdered per day during 2015 and 8 per day during 2016
(INEGI 2017). In 2017, the Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad
Pública (Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System) estimated that these rates increased to 3,256 (OCNF 2018, 39). The most recent data that I had access to is from
January to September 2018, where 2,034 feminicides were registered (Soto Azúa 2018, 1).
It should be noted that the statistics are only an approximation since not all states in Mexico provide information about cases of feminicide or don’t capture consistent statistics.
Moreover, these numbers do not include ‘disappeared’4 women, unreported victims and other cases that were not classified as ‘feminicide’.
“Public Women” and their double lives
As the violence and cases of feminicide have become more prevalent, many families have encountered police officers who blame the victims instead of the perpetrators. This is related to the sexist perspectives discussed earlier, where there is no in-between area for women: they are considered either prostitutes or virgins. The police claim further that if a woman was on the street while the crime happened, they may have been ‘looking for it’, making accusations such as “by day, she might appear the dutiful daughter, wife, mother,
4 Women whose remains have not been found.
12 sister, and laborer, but by night she reveals her inner prostitute, slut, and barmaid. In other words, she might not be worth the worry” (Wright 1999, 457).
An example of this is the case of a woman in Ciudad Juárez, who reported her 14- year-old daughter missing in 2001. Police officers replied that they couldn’t process the case as a disappearance, even when they knew the current violent situation of the city: “y ellos me dicen: –no, búsquela, por ahí esta con el novio, se fue con el novio, con los amigos, porque así son todas de vagas”5 (and they say to me: –no, look for her, she’s out there with her boyfriend, she went with her boyfriend or her friends, because that’s how they are, they are all ‘wanderers’). The mother, with tears on her eyes explained to the police that her daughter didn’t have a boyfriend, to which they replied: “asi son todas las mamás, saben lo que tienen dentro de la casa, pero no fuera de la casa” (That’s how all moms are, they know what they have inside the house, but not outside it). (Radiofeminista 2014, min. 8:00-8:35).
To address this phenomenon Wright introduced the term “Public Women”. It refers to how women outside the domestic realm are viewed negatively, that those found on the streets are considered prostitutes, regardless if they are students or workers. This negative perception of women hinders the possibilities of solving the cases, because according to this discourse “any woman who is a prostitute or who resembles one does not represent a legitimate victim of violence because she, through her immoral activities, caused her own problems. In other words, she has no right to justice because she is not a justifiable (i.e.,
‘innocent’) victim” (Wright 2006, 682). The concept contrasts with the concept of “public men” that refers to politicians or citizens, in other words, men with a right to public space.
This sexist discourse regards women as dangerous and contaminating. It “draws upon an idea
5 Vaga/Vago refers negatively to a person who spends too much time outside their home.
13 familiar around the world: that women who occupy public space should be regarded with suspicion” (Wright 2006, 682).
These views blame the victims for being abducted, tortured and killed, and exempt the perpetrators from responsibility. Instead of ensuring the well-being of women, the government and the police urge them not to live ‘double lives’ or to abide by the consequences of the lives they supposedly live. These suggestions do nothing more than justify the criminals’ behavior. Added to this, the high rate of cases that are unsolved perpetuates the violence and increases the number of feminicides each year.
Struggle to Memorialize
When the image of victims is tainted by negative associations, it undermines the importance of their cases and obstructs the possibility of solving them. It also makes it difficult to commemorate the victims. This raises questions about who is worth being remembered and who isn’t.
To answer these questions, one needs to consider the culpability of the media in these matters. On one hand, death, trauma and loss are recurring topics covered because of their emotional appeal. On the other, media coverage depends on who died and their cause of death:
In general, grassroots memorials appear if the person who passed away is a personality with a high mass-media status (the Pope, Lady Diana, Michael Jackson, etc.) or if those who are killed are considered ‘victims.’ In both cases, the mass media are a crucial element for enabling a grassroots memorial to acquire its active agency” (Margry & Sánchez-Carretero 2011, 26-33).
It is important to mention that a “grassroots memorial” refers to spontaneous social actions in public spaces where a tragic event occurred, often manifested as the placement of
14 mementos (Margry & Sánchez-Carretero 2011, 2). In Mexico such memorabilia often takes the form of pink crosses with the names of the victims inscribed on them.
As an example of the mentioned above, the most publicized case of feminicide in
Mexico since the 90’s, was Las Muertas de Juárez (Murdered women of Juárez). The cases occurred in Ciudad Juárez, a Northern town close to the U.S. border, where thousands of women have gone missing or were murdered. In November 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Government of Mexico to comply with 16 dispositions addressing the high rate of feminicide in the region, in order to “mend damages” caused to the families of the victims. One of the demands involved the construction of a memorial, which was not unveiled until 2011.
The monument in question was created by Verónica Leiton and is titled Flor de Arena
(Sand Flower) (2009). It consists of a 13-foot-tall bronze sculpture of a young woman looking up to the sky with a serene look on her face. From her feet rises a rock formation known as desert rose, which turns into a shawl that surrounds the figure. On it are inscribed the names of all the victims of feminicide from Ciudad Juárez to 2009 (Figure 5). The sculpture stands in an open field known as Campo Algodonero (cotton field) in the outskirts of the city, where the remains of eight women have been found.6 The artist’s intention was to turn the monument into a fountain, where the water would symbolize cleansing the violence and soothing the pain of the families mourning their daughters.
6 This case in particular is known as the ‘feminicides of the cotton field’.
15
Figure 5
During the first unveiling of the monument in 2011, there were no government representatives in attendance: not the former president, the governor or the mayor,7 infuriating the grieving families (Álvarez & Lucero 2018). A year later, the memorial was unveiled for a second time in order to appease the community, but once again, it enraged the families of the victims. This time the authorities refused to engrave the names of the victims of the cotton field cases on the walls surrounding the complex. Rather they used easy to remove vinyl stickers for the memorial. Furthermore, they added the name of a young woman whose status was still considered “missing”, implying they didn’t have any intention of looking for her, undermining her family’s hope to reunite with her. As for the sculpture, and to the surprise of the artist, the fountain element of the monument was cancelled without her consent or any previous notice (Torrea 2012).
7 Felipe Calderón, César Duarte and Héctor Murguía respectively.
16 This outrageous case study reflects the constant mistreatment that the grieving families are subjected to, and the shameless corruption and neglect involved. For the families of murdered women, it means the wound that grief represents is kept open. Furthermore, it permanently effects their interactions between their own family members and society. These circumstances effect the grieving processes of the bereaved, hindering the possibility of proper healing.
Disenfranchised Grief
Grieving the loss of a loved one is more complex when the death is sudden and violent. But what happens when that loss it is not considered worthy of mourning? This rhetorical question emphasizes the bewildering situation that feminicide is. Thousands of families lose their daughters, yet in the eyes of the government it seems insignificant.
Grieving processes and mourning rituals are part of every society, regardless if those expressions are simple or complex. Society dictates spiritual expressions and frames expected behaviours, including how to feel, think and act (Doka 2002, 6). Even though cases of feminicide can be mourned according to Mexican society’s rules, the government’s apparent disinterest ostracizes grieving families. Kenneth J. Doka explains in his book
Disenfranchised Grief that when there aren’t socially acceptable reasons to mourn, individuals are deprived of their right to grieve:
So although the person experiences grief, that grief is not openly acknowledged, socially validated or publicly observed… the concept of disenfranchised grief integrates psychological, biological, and sociological perspectives on grief and loss. (Doka 2002, 5).
One example of a socially unacceptable reason to mourn is linked to the misconception of the victims as “Public Women”. But the disenfranchisement of grief needs
17 to be expanded in order to encompass the other multiple factors that deprive families of this fundamental right. The lack of dignified treatment of the families by the police and justice ministers, include de-legitimizing victims causing social stigma, corruption during legal proceedings, and even threats to the bereaved families are some examples.
As an example of deprivation of the right to grieve and how families are ostracized, is the case of the family of Fátima Varinia Quintana-Gutiérrez. Twelve-year-old Fátima was raped and brutally killed on Febraury 5th, 2015, by three men in Lupita Casas Viejas in Estado de Mexico. Since then, only two of the perpetrators have been sentenced, the brothers
Atayde-Reyes, Luis A. serving 73 years in prison and Josué M., who is serving only 5 years because he was underage when he committed the crime. The third perpetrator, José Juan
Hernández-Cruceño was absolved on 2017, allegedly because forensic experts couldn’t find incriminating evidence, despite the fact that all three men were caught washing the victim’s blood from their hands within hours of Fatima’s disappearance. They were about to be lynched by the neighbours when police asked Fátima’s parents to intervene. (Gómez, 2019).
As in many cases, there were irregularities throughout the legal process, such as no expert testing or recollection of evidence, nor was there a formal forensic examination of the body. These factors, in addition to Hernández-Cruceño’s connections to organized crime, eventually led to his favorable verdict. On one occasion, the family of the imputed, threatened
Lorena Gutiérrez, Fátima’s mother, in the middle of a hearing in front of public ministers and magistrates. She recounts: “me acusaron de haberles destrozado su vida. ¡Por favor, ellos destrozaron a mi niña, me la mataron, la torturaron! ‘Maldita Perra, ya firmaste tú sentencia de muerte’”. (They accused me of having destroyed their lives. Please, they destroyed my daughter, they killed her, they tortured her! ‘Damn bitch, you signed your death sentence’).
After that incident, their household was shot at, they were constantly harassed and received
18 death threats. They had to flee under protection of the Executive Commission of Attention to
Victims of State of Mexico. Thanks to activist Frida Guerrera, it is known that the family is hiding in a small and poorly kept property that the government assigned, where six adults and six children are hiding for fear of reprisals. With no contact to other people, the family is unable to go to work or school, which makes them completely dependent on the government’s help. (Guerrera Villalvazo, 2017).
This case is an example of the thousands that happen in Mexico every year, where families have to deal with police incompetence and corruption. By failing to provide justice and true protection for the survivors, the only solution left is to seclude families, aggravating the traumatic experience of losing a child to violence. In Disenfranchised Grief, Doka suggests that because of the idea that such grief lacks the recognition of society at large, communal support can provide significant assistance to the bereaved (Doka 2002, 127).
However, this is less feasible when a family such as Fátima’s can’t even leave the house, and lacks access to proper support groups and help.
With feminicide, the deprivation of the right to grieve includes the inability of speaking about it or being publicly acknowledged. Violence is a widespread matter that is disregarded. So, what happens when exterior situations make you unable to mourn your loss?
Ambiguous Loss
In addition to the disfranchisement of grief, it is important to consider Pauline Boss’ concept of “ambiguous loss”. This refers to a never-ending longing of physical and psychological certainty of presence or absence, where “even sure knowledge of death is more welcome than a continuation of doubt” (Boss 1999, 2-6). This can be linked to many families who are still looking for their missing daughters or for their bodies. This kind of loss as the author
19 describes is similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in that it generates trauma and lacks resolution. But the difference lays in that ambiguous loss is constantly present: “the trauma goes on and on in what families describe as a rollercoaster ride, during which they alternate between hope and hopelessness” (Boss 1999, 24). These varying emotions wear the mourners down physically and psychologically.
To illustrate the above is the case of Mariana Elizabeth Yáñez-Reyes, who disappeared on September 17th, 2014 in Héroes de Tecámac, Estado de Mexico. A few hours after Mariana’s disappearance, the police told her parents to wait at least 72 hours before opening a file, implying that perhaps “she had run off with her boyfriend”. In January 2015, they informed the family that the upper part of both femurs and a fragment of skull from
Mariana’s body were found in Rio de los Remedios, a waterway used for sewage in Ecatepec.
Without letting the parents see her remains, the police buried her arguing that the family wasn’t psychologically prepared for the sight and urged them to “accept the facts” (Zamora
Márquez 2015). Even with blood tests performed on the remains, her mother, Guadalupe
Reyes, rejects the possibility that the bones belong to her daughter: “Yo no voy a reconocer que es mi hija hasta que tenga el 85 por ciento de su cuerpo […] de mi hija solo encuentran tres fragmentos” (I will not acknowledge that she is my daughter until I have the 85 percent of her body […] of my daughter, they only found three fragments). (Rosagel 2017). Along with this quote, Guadalupe indicated that the suspicious occurrences on her daughter’s case only favor the government, since the less is known about feminicides and their numbers, the better for delaying resolutions.
The irregularities in Mariana’s case not only deprive her family of their right to grieve, but also leave open vital questions that can help them get closure. They still don’t have certainty of what happened to her, the location of the rest of her remains, or who is
20 responsible for her feminicide. As Boss suggests, this ambiguity and lack of control can cause diverse personal and family problems. These include blockage of coping mechanisms; the inability to problem-solve and adjust; the denial of symbolic rituals like a funeral or a burial; social stigma that may make people withdraw their support; and physical and emotional exhaustion from the relentless uncertainty. (Boss 1999, 7-8).
The differences in Fátima and Mariana’s cases are evident, yet gender violence and corruption are present in both. As with many other feminicides throughout Mexico, these diverse circumstances uniquely effect each family and their members, yet it is also a communal affair. As Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas write about Derrida’s The Work of Mourning: “A singular mourning can be linked to the mourning of others, allowing for both singularity and relation, something absolutely unique and yet nonetheless shared”.
(Derrida, 2001, 22). This commonality is a central part of my artistic practice, which I will explain in the next chapters. First, I will describe how these notions are present in my artistic influences, theory and in the methodology I use, and second, how I address it in my final body of work.
21 CHAPTER 2:
ASPECTS OF THE ARTWORK: THEORY, METHODOLOGY, AND ARTISTIC
INFLUENCES
In this chapter, first I will discuss the theories and methodologies that I use in my research- creation process. The first, based on affective theory in conjunction with forensic aesthetics, and supported by Jill Bennet’s Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art. The second based, in autoethnography. Next, I will introduce the artists who influence my practice, in relation to materials, forms of representation, connection between concepts and metaphors, and the social engagement that their pieces generate. Such artists are Doris
Salcedo, Teresa Margolles, Christi Belcourt, and Jaime Black. These artists share a common approach to social issues, and exploit the use of repetition in their practices. Both aspects will be discussed further in relation to my own research-creation, and how this repetitive process can become a ritualized practice. Finally, I will introduce my past iterations of this subject, and how they progressively led me to my thesis project. These iterations are
Untitled/Unnoticed (2017), Quotidian Patterns (2018) and Unweaving Foundations (2018).
Theoretical Approach
I base my research-creation in affective theory, supported by Jill Bennet’s book Empathic
Vision. Her approach to trauma in contemporary art is relevant to my practice because contemporary art is a way to share experiences with the viewers, who may or may not consider the sensitivity of the topics. Thus, through aesthetic experiences, an affective response can be triggered in viewers. Trauma-related art is not only created by survivors of
22 traumatic events; it also encompasses the work artists that engage with people who have suffered trauma, translating raw emotions into art.
Trauma-related art, then, expands the limits of empathic responses, and “is best understood as transactive rather than communicative. It often touches us, but it does not necessarily communicate the ‘secret’ of personal experience” (Bennett 2005, 7). This quote references the process that such personal experiences go through in an artistic practice. The process translates strong emotion and painful events, detaches them from individuals, such that the resulting artwork evoke shared experiences.
This transformation of traumatic experiences into art, relates to Forensic Aesthetics.
Forensics is defined as the skill of making an argument before a ‘forum’, which consists of a professional, political or legal gathering. According to Forensic Aesthetics not only people can address the forum, but any item can do it as well. Yet such items require a ‘translation’ or ‘interpretation’, “because objects do not speak for themselves… [they require] a person or a set of technologies to mediate between the object and the forum, to present the object, interpret it and place it within a larger net of relations” (Forensic Architecture 2011).8 This definition in relation to artistic practice can be understood as follows: the viewers of an exhibition are the forum, the artist addresses the forum and ‘translates’ materials into art pieces, and the artwork is the evidence presented to the forum.
My practice then, is based in these expanded empathic responses, driven from
Affective Theory and Forensic Aesthetics. My work derives from the violence that tears
Mexico apart. Even though feminicide and its aftermath are ghastly issues, the purpose of my practice is not to shock the audience with violent imagery. Rather, I aim to immerse them
8 The definition was given during a conference at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics in New York, titled ‘Forensic Aesthetics: A roundtable forum on and with objects’, held on November 5th, 2011.
23 in an atmosphere that will encourage exploration. I provide a space where people can reflect and connect with those violent events and mourn along with the bereaved families.
Methodology
As Chapman and Sawchuk suggest in “Research-Creation: Intervention, Analysis and
“Family Resemblances””, the term research-creation can be expanded in four subcategories, one of them being research-for-creation, where I situate my practice. According to this method, the gathering of information in order to create can include materials, concepts, and techniques, among many others. It is important to mention that this phase is prior to production. Gathered data and materials inform aesthetic decisions throughout the production process: “Research-for-creation, then, is meant to connote… the tracking down of precedents for one’s creative ideas, the articulation of a cluster of concepts, as well as trying out different prototypes or iterations” (Chapman & Sawchuk 2012, 15-16).
My research-for-creation process also intersects with autoethnography, which is defined as “the approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experience in order to understand cultural experience” (Ellis et al. 2011). It is through these personal experiences that I gather my concepts, materials and visual influences, which I’m going to describe in detail in the next chapter.
These approaches encourage me to understand my experiences, observations and background in order to connect them to larger phenomenon. Through the gathering of data, my research on feminicide and its Mexican context, I pondered how many families have been ostracized and have had to experience disenfranchised grief. If feminicides have become a pandemic, an example of systematic violence that appears “normal”, what happens when society becomes so desensitized that it believes women are ready to be used and then
24 disposed as garbage? What happens when society regards thousands of violent deaths as something of little importance? What happens when impunity reigns and the only thing to do is limit women’s activities in order to “protect” them? What happens when people are not able to transcend bereavement? What happens when you become just a statistic? These rhetorical interrogations led me to my research question: How can my art enhance the understanding of the effects of feminicide on families? To answer this question, I need to address first my artistic influences and past iterations of my work.
Doris Salcedo
I will address first the work of Doris Salcedo. She is a Colombian artist who addresses social and political issues, mostly tragedies such as disappearances, murders, and civil war, among others. Her pieces are site specific and deal with the lived experiences of people who have suffered such events. Her practice expands beyond her natal Colombia, encompassing tragedies from other parts of the world.
Some of Salcedo’s work incorporates diverse tactile and delicate materials, which help support the ephemerality and poetics of her pieces. Because of their ‘feminine essence’ and the daily presence of the materials (shoes, needles, petals, and even water), they could be overlooked. The strength of her work is related to the disregarded nature of her materials.
An example of this is A flor de piel (2014), which consists of hundreds of rose petals carefully hand-sewn together to create a mourning shroud. Each petal seems to be pressed and preserved in such a way that they look fresh, noticeable by their radiant red colour and the texture of their flesh, giving the piece almost the appearance of flayed skin, which gruesomely contrasts with the beauty and fragility of the flowers. The piece tells the story of a nurse. Katherine Brinson describes how Salcedo’s fragile and repetitive process serves as
25 evidence of the traumatic events that are involved in the death of this specific person. A flor de piel pays:
homage to a specific victim: a nurse who was tortured to death after a long captivity in Colombia, her body dismembered before it could be recovered… Salcedo set out to create an offering to this woman, one that would be adequately inscribed with the depth of her suffering while eschewing a depiction of torment so visceral that it would collapse into an object of visual trauma. For a task she deemed ‘impossible,’ the artist decided on an impossible object: Penelope-like, she would slowly weave an enormous burial shroud – a ritualistic covering that would reinstate the nurturing care of her subject’s profession that had been so brutally inverted in her treatment by her captors. (Salcedo et al. 2015, 210).
Figure 6
I derive inspiration from Salcedo’s detailed and poetic work, and her repetitive ritualized processes. This piece is an example of how she references the recurrence of systematic violence in Colombian society, through painstakingly detailed stitches and sutures. But also, stitching and putting together these flesh-like petals transcends the violence and offers a way of healing. The action of mending a body is also referenced in the title of
26 the piece. A flor de piel is an idiom that refers to an overt display of emotions, that roughly translates to feelings that grow or blossom as flowers from the skin. Such expression links the rose petals to the pain inflicted on a body even further.
Another piece of Salcedo that I find relevant to my practice is Palimpsest (2018). It honors the people who have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea while immigrating from their countries of origin. The piece consists of multiple concrete tiles, specially engineered to let droplets of water raise to their surface. The water spells the names of the victims. After a while they evaporate, allowing another to emerge, hence the name of the installation. The way the artist discusses remembrance in this piece is haunting: the permanence of memory is futile when faced with such a large number of victims. Yet it seems the quantity of these deaths is not considered as a monumental tragedy. I perceive a connection between my subject matter and Salcedo’s exploration of the collective memory of a society towards specific deaths.
Figure 7
The imagery that Salcedo creates is symbolic and sometimes aesthetically detached from crude and violent images. What interests me the most about her practice is the way she
27 transforms tragic events into poetic installations and performances in order to make such matters more approachable for viewers. I also find resonances in the way she shares raw emotions through highly symbolic pieces, while honoring the victims in a deeply respectful way. In a manner her pieces reflect a shared experience, a connection with a broader community.
Teresa Margolles
Teresa Margolles is another artist whose work has influenced my practice greatly since the beginning of my MFA. She is a Mexican artist whose artistic practice examines issues related to the violence and murders in Mexico, and their repercussions for society. Her pieces have caused controversy due to the topics and materials that she uses (like blood and fragments of broken glass from crime scenes) and for the ethical questions her work raises, for example the boundaries of depicting violence and the pain of others.
Margolles’s work shares similarities with Salcedo’s pieces in her minimalistic use of objects that are highly symbolical. Yet, her use of materials is more raw and provokes strong and sometimes involuntary reactions in viewers. One of her pieces is Plancha (2010), or
‘Plate’, which consists of a long line of hot plates onto which droplets of water fall. As they do, they evaporate almost instantly and make a subtle sizzling sound. The dripping water comes from the morgues of Mexico City, water that was used to clean dead bodies. After several drops have fallen onto the plates, they start to create beautiful markings on the metal.
Plancha examines the challenges of the memorialization of anonymous victims of violence in Mexico, and their role in collective memory.
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Figure 8
I relate Margolles’s process for her piece Plancha and Salcedo’s Palimpsest to my own practice. Both artists use delicate and simple elements like water, that are highly charged symbolically. The repetition of the elements can leave a mark, or create a presence. I draw a parallel between the continuous dripping of water in Margolles’s work and the mechanical and the repetitive processes that I follow, like pulling of threads and pouring of salted water.
I am also influenced by the simplicity of Margolles’s and Salcedo’s pieces and their effectiveness in transmitting their content, as well as to enable, or at least advocate for, collective mourning.
Christi Belcourt
Christi Belcourt is a Métis artist from Scarborough, Ontario. Her artistic practice is based in community-engaged projects that advocate for the environment, as well as the preservation and celebration of her culture. Belcourt is the lead coordinator of the project Walking With
29 Our Sisters that began in 2012. It is an art installation that commemorates the lives of the
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada. Walking With Our Sisters consists of over 1,800 embroidered pairs of moccasin tops called “vamps”, each one representing a woman (Figure 9). The vamps are created by Indigenous women across
Canada and then donated to the artist for their installation. The artwork aims to create awareness of the issue, to remember the victims and celebrate their lives, as well as engage the community in creative and meaningful action.
Figure 9
Looking at community-engagement projects as a way to create a supportive environment for bereaved families, Belcourt’s project shares similarities with an art installation from Mexico: Zapatos Rojos: Arte Público (Red Shoes: Public Art) by Elina
Chauvet. Chauvet’s installation is ongoing since 2009, in which the artist has collected hundreds of shoes. She then paints them red with the help of volunteers from each city the piece visits. Her project refers to the high rates of feminicide in Mexico by presenting the red
30 shoes as a reminder of the lives that were cut short so abruptly. The work originated from the artist’s first-hand experience of the loss of a loved one (Figure 10).
Walking With Our Sisters and Zapatos Rojos use footwear as a symbol of absence.
Shoes act as a very tangible reminiscence of a presence because they are in close contact with the body. With the passage of time they acquire the imprint of the wearer, their unique way of walking is marked on the soles. The large number of shoes and vamps help the viewers to understand the magnitude of the issues. At the same time, because of the embodied nature of these objects, an affective response can be triggered. Either a shocking or sympathetic reaction, the installations achieve community cooperation and engagement. This commitment is evidenced by the thousands of people who have donated the shoes, carefully embroidered them or painted them red. In addition to the impact that both projects have had in their country of origin, as well as internationally.
Figure 10
These two projects are an example of the similarities that Mexican and Canadian communities experience. While each context has its own particular and unique issues, it is
31 essential to find connections between communities experiencing feminicide in order to build support between them. I draw inspiration from the way these artists become activists. Both projects are examples of art transcending barriers, of becoming markers for social change, and providing space for the recognition of the right to grieve.
Jaime Black
Similar to Walking With Our Sisters and Zapatos
Rojos, is Jaime Black’s ongoing installation The
REDress Project (2014). The installation
addresses the issue of Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Women and Girls across Canada and
consists of red dresses donated by the community
that are exhibited across the country. The
garments act as a reminder of the high rates of
these cases and seeks to create awareness of the
issue. The REDress Project serves as a visual
Figure 11 reference of community-engaged artistic projects and as an example of a non-official memorial.
Black’s project is a raw and emotional work that acts as a reminder of the lives that were taken abruptly. The dresses, just like the shoes, act as ghostly presences, of which the vibrant red colour catches the eyes of the public. They stand as silent bodies that claim attention, but also honour these women, their memories and their lives. As the artist notes:
“the dresses are calling in the spirit of these women who are ‘lost’ but they are not lost, they are with us all the time, they are with us right now. We put up these dresses, we mark them,
32 and we give them a space to fill and they dance” (Cited in Brulé 2018, 341-342). Therefore, by marking and assigning a dress to a specific woman, these garments are transformed into precious objects.
This body of work was one of the main influences for my project Untitled/Unnoticed.
The use of the dresses as ghostly reminders of bodies is echoed in my work through the delicate night slips and underwear that I intervened. My use of colour was influenced by the vibrancy of their colour, that can be seen as cheerful and empowered, yet also relates to violence. The minimalism of my installation is similar to that employed by Black, which enhanced the strong presence of the garments.
Past iterations
Thanks to these theories and artistic precedents, I was able to identify materials that suit my concept. Such materials are textiles, which are a rich source for possibilities when creating art because of their textures, flexibility, and ample variety of techniques, for example embroidery, which I used through my first and second iterations. However, the aspect that I find most important is the richness of their significations, even though textiles may be regarded by society and artistic communities as trivial and inconsequential as a result of being traditionally gendered as female (Bryan-Wilson 2017, 20). Rozsika Parker suggests that textiles’ categorization as irrelevant developed from the separation of art and craft during the
Renaissance. Embroidery in particular, was considered artistically less significant than other kinds of art. Embroidery belonged to the domestic sphere and was performed by women; painting or sculpting was mostly done by men in the public sphere. (Parker 2010, 5)
For this reason, I consider textiles as a useful resource for challenging prevalent stereotypes. Bryan-Wilson notes that their multiplicity of significations can advocate both
33 for tradition and for defiance. Among these significations they also encompass their potential as social signifier, as structure, as embodiment for protest, among others (Bryan-Wilson
2017, 10-34). Based on this potential I started exploring such materials: as embodiment of pain and violence in Untitled/Unnoticed; as a length of Toile de Jouy fabric that represents violence turning into a repeated behavioural pattern in Quotidian Patterns; and as a shroud that shows the disintegration of Mexico’s infrastructure, due to systematic violence in
Unweaving Foundations. All these iterations informed the steps moving towards the pieces for my final body of work.
Untitled/Unnoticed
The first iteration of my research-creation was Untitled/Unnoticed (2017), pieces that were presented during the first semester of my MFA program. The exhibition addresses feminicide by employing used intimate white garments as representations of bodies. Through a delicate process of sewing wire along the seams, I achieved a more rounded shape, as if someone was wearing the clothes. In addition to preparing the garments, I embroidered roses with red cotton thread into their thin fabric. In accordance with old Victorian mourning traditions, the rose represents women; depending on the appearance of the flower, it could reference age, marital status, and even if a woman suffered a sudden death.
34
Figure 12
Through the process of embroidery, I noticed that the needlework was rather invasive given the delicate structure of the fabric. Every time I made a stitch, the cloth would rip a little, creating small holes, even though I did it as carefully as possible. This led me to conceptualize deeper the whole procedure, using it as a metaphor for disrupting the flesh of these bodies, as mutilation and torture. Driven by that idea, I started to deconstruct the embroidered roses and emphasize the process of stitching through leaving needles and pins in the fabric, and reversing the hoop to show the back of the needlework. From displaying unfinished roses, the process moved towards the modification and more extreme interventions of the garments. For example, I horizontally slashed one of the slips and reattached it with loose and chaotic red stitches. The results are more subtle and visceral than the fully embroidered pieces. The use of embroidery as an invasive procedure contrasts with
35 the pristine cleanliness of the intimate garments. The mechanical torture that the needlework applies serves as metaphor for the violation of these female bodies.
Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15
The ghostly appearance of the pieces references feminicide, which relates to the title of the exhibition. “Untitled” refers to someone without a name or who has no right or claim to social status, and is thus ignored. “Unnoticed” refers to the limited visibility of the matter because of its unpleasantness, thus the need to spread awareness.
Quotidian Patterns
The second iteration is Quotidian Patterns (2018), a project that was created during the exchange program with the Royal College of Art in London in which I participated. The installation references statistics of feminicides in Mexico since 2017. During this year the number of feminicides increased to 3,256 (OCNF 2018, 39), which represents an average of nine women murdered daily. To address these statistics, I created a design inspired by XVIII
36 century French patterns known as “Toiles de Jouy”.9 The pattern consisted of images representing the cases of nine girls murdered from 2011 to 2017, aged between 11 and 18 years-old. The images were etched on zinc plates and printed on white fabric, 30 feet long and 25 inches wide. The names of the girls were embroidered in red thread. The piece was installed in the centre of the gallery, suspended from three different sized white tubes. The smaller tube was installed higher and the larger one lower, to reference the exponential rise in number of murdered women.
Figure 16
With this piece I aimed to create a memorial shroud that demonstrates the magnitude of feminicide. Through a simple and unobtrusive installation of the piece, I created a space for mournful contemplation enhanced by the dim lights of the gallery and the size of the
9 Decorative pattern of landscapes, flowers or pastoral scenes printed on a light color background. Commonly found in upholstery, fabrics and wallpapers.
37 fabric. The open space left around the piece allowed viewers to circle it with ease and experience the atmosphere of the room.
I used the Toile de Jouy to reference the normalization of gender violence and feminicide. As these patterns are repeated multiple times, so are feminicides. The design suggests a pattern of violent behaviour towards women. The impunity is reflected in the new cases that arise each day, and the older ones get pushed aside. This is referenced in the blank portion of the cloth, meant to suggest the nine new cases that are likely to be added each day.
Through my creative practice I subverted the Toiles de Jouy and its traditional pastoral scenes; instead of decorative domestic fabric, it depicts tragedies extracted from the media.
Each of the images represents a particular case. The girls depicted are Valeria Teresa
Gutiérrez-Ortiz, Diana Lizeth Ramírez-Estrada, Mara Fernanda Castilla-Miranda, Fátima
Varinia Quintana-Gutiérrez, Bianca Edith Barrón-Cedillo, Mariana Elizabeth Yáñez-Reyes,
Abril Selena Caldiño-Rodríguez, Arisbeth Sánchez-Izalde and Yenifer Velázquez- Navarro.
The etchings contain the girls’ portraits, a reference to the place where they were kidnapped or where their bodies were found, as well as protests performed by NGO’s and the bereaved families. The stories behind each image depicted encompass some of the different variables of feminicide, such as: uncertainty about the whereabouts of the remains; cruelty and violence caused by jealousy; the vulnerability of the families against corruption and organized crime, among many others. It is important to note that the photos and information that I used as a reference were easily available from newspapers and websites.
38
Figure 17
However, with Quotidian Patterns I realized that it is problematic to memorialize thousands of deaths with only a few known cases, as they cannot stand for all the feminicides.
As an example of this is Beth Alber’s monument Marker of Change/ À l’aube du changement
(1997). The monument in memory of the Montreal Massacre victims was installed in
Thornton Park, in Vancouver’s downtown Eastside. This neighborhood was the place where
39 several killings of Indigenous women took place between 1978 and 2006. Controversy surrounded the monument from the beginning, including concerns about spreading hate towards men, being intrusive and insensitive, valuing some lives above others, being a waste of money, among many others. Even though Alber’s memorial was responding to acts of violence, it is controversial because it ostracizes women in disadvantageous circumstances.
(McNeill 2008, 378-385). This kind of action may take away attention from local issues and could reinforce the idea that some lives are more valuable than others. This is a concern that
I’m aware of, and I think about frequently in my artistic process. I’m discussing the subject of Mexican feminicide in Canada, a country where the Indigenous Peoples face similar violence. It is not my intention to divert attention from local issues, yet, as I’m not part of that community, I can only talk about my own context.
Another thing to mention is the disconnect between elements, metaphors and subject matter, as the French Toile de Jouys patterns are difficult to connect with the Mexican context of feminicide. Because of this disparity, I spent my spring semester researching textiles and their connections to gender and mourning practices. I encountered a Mexican garment that epitomizes these three concepts: the rebozo. The rebozos’ ties to traditional gender roles, and its use for diverse funerary practices, became the main material for the last iteration and, finally, my thesis project.
Unweaving Foundations
Unweaving Foundations (2018), as my penultimate iteration, questions the high rates of feminicide in Mexico that increase year by year. The piece consists of four black rebozos, which are woven shawls worn by women. They are suspended vertically by 28 braided
40 extensions of the warps,10 which are the threads that give structure to the shawls. Through a delicate and detailed process of unravelling I created the outline of Mexico in the shawls, highlighting 7 of the 32 states: Estado de Mexico, Veracruz, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua,
Sinaloa, Guerrero and Jalisco. These states had the highest rates of feminicide from January to July 2018 (Delgado 2018). The spaces where the threads were taken away seem to glow when they are seen against the white wall, giving the whole ensemble an ethereal appearance.
The piece hangs in the middle of the gallery, slightly tilted towards the entrance, in order to confront the viewers who might be just passing by. Another element present in the piece is copal, an incense used since pre-Columbian times, used to infuse the shawls every day it was on exhibition.
Figure 18
10 28 as a reference to women’s menstrual cycle.
41 Rebozos are garments that have been predominantly used by women from the time of colonization, used to protect the wearer from the sun or the cold. They also have close connections with life cycle rituals, including birth, death, and mourning practices. In
Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico, black scented rebozos known as “luto de aroma” (aroma of mourning) were used as shrouds for women. Their scent is very subtle and pleasant, achieved by a mix of local materials like sage, rosemary, cloves, rose petals, water lilies, cocoa and iron tincture. The recipes for the aroma and the designs of the rebozos vary from workshop to workshop. While I was doing research in this town, I met a member of the family Segura-Flores, one of the last families who preserve this tradition. He recounted that even though this custom is being lost, there are still women who are buried with their scented rebozos. The garment that would have accompanied a woman most of her life would accompany her in death. It would be placed covering the head and shoulders, leaving the face unveiled.
42
Figure 19
As for the copal, its use dates back to pre-Columbian times. When it is burnt an earthy and wood-like smell fills the air. In Mayan and Aztec cultures, it has connections with the divine, was considered the food of the gods and was offered daily. It connects with higher realms and spirituality (Deathscent, 2018). During the colonial period, practices evolved where copal was mixed with Catholic traditions, allowing the use of this incense to persist.
Nowadays it is used for divinatory purposes, as an offering on the Day of the Dead altars, to prevent diseases, and as therapeutic treatments, all intended to purify and cleanse. Instead of burning it, as is the traditional method, I used a liquid form of the copal to incorporate its scent into my piece. I decided to do this in order to keep the smell more discreet, and so that the smoke wouldn’t distract the viewer from the piece. To achieve the liquid scent, I dissolved the copal resin into 99% isopropanol alcohol, and let it sit for a couple of days until it dissolved completely. I then sprayed the liquid onto the deconstructed rebozos.
43 Based on the importance of copal, the action of perfuming the piece connects with rituals of cleansing, as well as to the rebozos luto de aroma. By spraying my artwork, I aimed for a personal ritual to cleanse the violence referenced by the piece, including the violent act of unravelling. In addition, this sensory component was intended to act as a guide for viewers: as a way to trigger emotions and memories; as a reminder of old traditions and contemplative spaces; and to accentuate the lonely, almost ghostly presence of the rebozos.
The process of unweaving comes from pondering how these heinous murders deeply affect the interactions of Mexican families. What would happen if the destabilization of a family is projected on a bigger scale? If we consider Mexico as a fabric, and each intersection of the warps and wefts as a person, the pulling and cutting away of threads could be seen as feminicide; weakening of the structure. The violence applied in a repetitive manner to a garment that was meant to protect, signifies the progressive destabilization that the infrastructure of Mexico is suffering because of feminicide.
In other words, Unweaving Foundations references the weakening of a structure when a repetitive destructive behavior is applied to it, as a parallel to the thousands of women murdered each year. It represents my thoughts on how violence is tearing apart my home country, how it transforms relationships within families, and society’s perception of the victims, leaving it weakened and almost falling apart.
With the atmosphere that I created in the gallery, I was looking for an emotional response from the viewer. The addition of a sensory component and the play of the lights with the threads of the rebozos, made it a silent, solemn, contemplative and almost funereal ambience. I wanted to invite the viewers to spend time reflecting with the ghostly presence that is the piece.
44 This iteration was a big step for me towards my thesis exhibition. It made me realize the importance of this traditional garment and the richness that it provides to the concept.
The unravelled rebozos, with their hair-like appearance, provide an interesting visual image, one that connects further with women, mementos kept after a death, and forgotten remains, ideas that will be developed in next chapter. In addition, the inclusion of a more ritualized creation process offers a healing and soothing antidote to these violent acts. As the result of the experience of Unweaving Foundations, my practice moved towards addressing the difficulties families of feminicide victims have mourning their loss. It explores the impact that mourning rituals and support from the community have on the bereaved families.
45 CHAPTER 3:
NOVEM
In this chapter I will discuss the process and the elements involved in my thesis exhibition
Novem. The title references the Catholic mourning ritual, widely practiced in Mexico called novenario, a word that stems from the Latin, “novem” (nine). The title also references indigenous myths about the journey of the souls to the Aztec land of the dead. This lore is still present in the festivities of the Day of the Dead, a celebration that is very relevant to my practice.
The exhibition consists of a series of nine crystallized rebozos that hang from the ceiling of the gallery. The garments, in different degrees of unravelling, are crystallized with salt, which creates intricate and organic formations around the tangled threads. The black colour of the rebozos contrasts dramatically with the parts covered by the salt crystals. Each shawl measures around 21” wide and 8’ tall, with the top fringes braided into a wood piece that enables their installation. The wood battens are sandblasted and stained black to blend with the distressed rebozos. Another work that resembles hair is elevated from the floor, which makes the delicate crystalized outline appear to float. In addition, there is a piece consisting of unravelled rebozos in the process of crystallization, submerged in a saline solution. Along with this work there is a chalice with salt, from which the viewer is invited to add a pinch to the water. This action is a small gesture of sympathy, almost like a silent prayer to echo the audio piece. The audio will consist of almost unintelligible prayers. The recording mixes different women’s voices whispering the Spanish prayers that are offered during the novenarios.
46 In the following pages, I will discuss the context of the materials, mythologies and concepts that I draw inspiration from. Along with the reasoning behind my creative process of pouring salt and water over and over the rebozos. I will describe further the importance of the materials that I use and their deeper connections to the Mexican context of mourning.
Figure 20
Día de Muertos
During the data collection phase of my process, I gathered different elements rooted in my
Mexican cultural background. I focused on objects and concepts related to festivities of Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, to remember
47 children and adults respectively. On the Day of the Dead people set up altars in their houses or graveyards to receive their loved ones. It is believed that the souls will accompany the living during the festivities, and they will partake of the food, drinks, clothes and objects offered to them.
I consider the Day of the Dead a good example of the syncretism that occurred during the colonial period, where prehispanic and Spanish/Catholic traditions mixed. This celebration comes from pre-Columbian festivities known as Miccailhuitontli11 and
Hueymiccailhuitl,12 celebrated throughout August (Letechipía A. 2012, 10). Due to the
Indigenous population’s strong attachment to them, the celebrations could not be eradicated.
Instead they were adapted and evolved into the contemporary festivities observed today.
Novem/Nine
Regarding the title of the exhibition, the number nine ties to ancient traditions as well as
Catholic rites of mourning. On the one hand, it is linked to the nine levels of Mictlán, the
Aztec underworld. Mictlán or the place of the dead, was described as a damp and dark place where the bones of past generations are stored, and the souls wait for their yearly return to the realm of the living during the Hueymiccailhuitl. These levels or regions were dreadful, filled with terrible creatures and dangerous obstacles, such as raging rivers, clashing mountains, storms of knives, and icy winds “cold enough to peel the skin from the cheeks of a living man” (Phillips & Jones 2004, 217). These regions not only pose challenges for the souls, the physical body is strained as well. The journey to Mictlán can be understood as a metaphor for decomposition, the reduction of a living body to bones. This is an idea that I
11 “Lower celebration of the dead.” Dedicated to children whom ascended directly to upper realms. 12 “Great celebration of the dead.” Dedicated to adults.
48 link to the process of creating my pieces, in which the rebozos acquire a skeletal appearance due to the effect of the salt crystals, as seen in Figure 21.
On the other hand, number nine ties to a Catholic mourning practice known as
Novenario or Novena. According to this tradition, after someone is buried, family and friends pray for the soul of the deceased for nine consecutive days, publicly or privately. As Davis suggests, these events engage the community. Such activities include wearing formal clothing, the prayers they offer together, and the companionship they give to the bereaved.
Emphasizing that “the life of the believing community has changed but not diminished, just as the life of the deceased is transformed but not ended” (Davis 2006, 24). This suggests the importance that rituals have for strengthening affective bonds in a community.
Number nine then, is another symbol that unifies these contrasting traditions. Since I don’t want the installation to be directly linked to a specific religion, I chose the word novem as the title of my exhibition instead of Novenario. Novem is the Latin root of Novenario, that
I prefer to use to also encompass the mythical journey to Mictlán. I find that this title expresses the mestizaje13 present in every aspect of the materials and concepts that I use.
Salt and Water
Salt and water are two elements linked to the Day of the Dead that are present on the altars.
They are symbols of purification but with different purposes. Salt is used to ward off the souls of corrupting influences from the realm of the living while they are visiting. The water is intended to quench the thirst of the souls visiting after their long journey.
13 Racial and cultural mixing.
49 Salt then, not only purges and purifies, it also preserves and destroys. It preserves in the sense that during the process of creation of my pieces, the unravelled rebozos acquired certain strength despite of their apparent fragility. But the salt also gives the threads a skeletal appearance. Salt reduces these garments, with their allusion to bodies, to bones (Figure 21).
This process not only plays with the idea of passing time, it also alludes to the journey to
Mictlán, as a metaphor of decomposition, and progressive oblivion of feminicide cases.
These petrified and preserved bodies allude to ambiguous loss, and frozen uncertainty.
Figure 21
Salt is a material that I use to cleanse the violence that my pieces reference, even while it stings and burns my hands with its touch. Water is the vehicle through which the salt can impregnate the rebozos. Both materials work as a metaphor for tears, the constant tears
50 of grieving families, of grieving Mexico. Salt and water are cleansing, yet of opposite nature, one burns the skin, the other soothes the pain. This contrast embodies the mestizaje and the diverse dichotomies present throughout my work.
Rebozos
The rebozos as mentioned in the previous chapter are linked to traditional women’s roles and mourning practices. This garment has been an important part of Mexican women’s lives for at least 400 years, as well as a national symbol. García-Manzanedo notes that during the first decades of independent Mexico, the need for a cultural identifier arose. Because of the great cultural diversity, the rebozo served as a unifier for the recently established nation, one with which persons from any social status could identify: “In this way, the rebozo took on an important role in the life and the attire of Mexican women” (García-Manzanedo 2012, 38).
But the importance of this shawl goes beyond national identity. As Bryan-Wilson suggests, textiles are more than decoration or utilitarian, they are “objects that are in close physical contact with us at virtually every minute of the day… we have a profound somatic connection to cloth material that mediates many of our encounters. Textiles thus have distinct meanings as structure, covering, marker of space, attire, interior element, and social signifier”
(Bryan-Wilson 2017, 6 & 34). These relations to the body are also present in a very tangible aspect of the rebozos and my pieces: once they are unravelled, look like hair (Figure 22).
This serves as a metaphor for the corporality of the material.
Hair has been used in Europe for centuries as a physical reminder of a loved one:
“After a person’s death, their hair remained…Hair was a tangible keepsake of a life, and of a body. Perhaps it imparted a sense that you might meet again” (Wills 2019). Michelle Iwen refers to hair “as an abject material that acts as an intimate marker of personal grief”. But
51 unlike other organic materials, hair doesn’t decay, which makes it a permanent token of remembrance (Iwen 2016, 247). Thus, my crystalized rebozos are mementos of feminicide victims, awaiting in oblivion. These distressed textiles are tangible reminders of their missing bodies.
Figure 22
Ritualized Process
My creative process since the beginning of my MFA has been based on repetition, sometimes referencing the systematic violence of feminicide, or reflecting feminicide’s statistics. With
Novem, my creative process focused on a ritualized cleansing of such violence. The process started by unravelling the rebozos into different shapes and stages of disintegration, referencing the passing of time that eventually throws the cases of feminicide into oblivion.
Once the garments were in the desired shapes, I proceeded to ‘anoint’ them with water saturated with salt over and over again, thereby ‘purifying’ them and making them ‘sacred’ memorials to victims of feminicide. I refer to the pouring of water and salt as ‘anointing’
52 because of the ritual quality of the process. One piece can take up to a month or more to become completely covered by salt crystals.
Repetition then, has an important role in my practice. Jack Santino, notes that when a performative aspect is incorporated into public and spontaneous commemorative practices, in this case repetitive processes, it adds a “ritualesque” quality. Santino refers to the ritualesque as “instrumental (rather than purely expressive) but still symbolic public actions that are done to make a difference, to cause a change in social attitudes and behaviours, to make something happen” (Santino 2011, 103). Adding to this, Doka describes ritual as a threshold to transcend in order to find meaning, and it is a matter of social and personal significance (Doka 2002, 135). Yet as discussed in previous chapters, feminicide victims and their families are neglected, denied proper mourning rituals or grieving processes.
Therefore, my method of creation is a ritualized procedure, which uses repetitive transformation to give meaning to the actions present in my process: the cutting and pulling of threads of the rebozos, the continuous pouring of water and salt, and the repetition of the voices in the audio. As Doka notes rituals offer meaning and structure for expressing emotions within a community: “ritual is defined as highly symbolic acts that confer transcendental significance and meaning on certain life events or experiences” (Doka 2002,
135). Rituals then, allow the community to connect and mourn together, which is important when facing ambiguous loss. In a way, a ritual offers certainty and validation of the strong emotions caused by feminicide’s violent deaths. Thus, through my installation I give voice to the women who have abruptly lost their lives, and invite the community to mourn along with their families through a ritualized artistic practice.
53 The installation
Novem recreates an atmosphere in which the viewers can experience a quiet environment for contemplation, and for partaking of the distress of grieving families in
Mexico. The audio with the painful whispered prayers enables a cohesive setting and unifies all the works in the gallery. Novem’s rebozos have a skeletal appearance, that enhances the uneasiness of the audio piece. My work embodies emotions, experiences, and memories.
Such embodied emotions are profound sorrow and despair at the prevailing corruption and neglect surrounding feminicides; it also references the receding of the cases, leaving them unsolved. The constant dripping of water and salt slowly reduced these once embodied cloths to bones. As an allegory for the journey to Mictlán, these “bodies” endure the passage of time leaving only mementos behind: bones and hair preserved in salt.
Rebozo XI is a piece in process of crystallization that coincides with the duration of
Novem, from August 9 to September 21, 2019. It is elevated by a white plinth with a tank embedded in it, which contains unravelled rebozos spreading their hair-like threads in water and salt. Next to this piece is a smaller plinth, supporting a black ceramic vessel, like a chalice, with salt. A spoon next to the chalice invites the viewer to add a few grains to the water. This small action could be a gesture of sympathy, almost like a silent prayer that echoes the audio piece; a small action that offers opportunity to engage and share the grief of these families. Santino notes that leaving behind tokens or small gestures constitutes a relationship between the site and the griever. It binds the living and the dead, and in a way
“these places of communion put the dead back in the fabric of life” (Margry & Sánchez-
Carretero 2011, 25). The places that Santino refers to are spontaneous memorial sites, yet in the context of my exhibition, this relates to the environment created in the gallery, and the communion that Novem creates.
54 The overlapped women’s voices of the audio provoke unease, as they confront the viewer with the impotence families feel as a result of the government’s neglect and their sense of insecurity. It seems that the only option left them is to pray. The unintelligible voices whisper novenario prayers in Spanish, with one phrase standing out from the rest: Ruega por nosotras (pray for us), the conjugation referencing only females. Prayers by definition, are solemn words asking for intercession from a deity, and they can be seen as a form of meditation as well. The repetitive prayer echoes the ritualized processes throughout my practice and emphasizes the conflicting interrupted and unresolved emotions associated with feminicide.
I am aware that Novem’s context may not be completely understood by everybody because it is strongly rooted in specific Mexican traditions. But the goal of this exhibition is to transcend such limits of knowledge or awareness through aesthetic, emotional and affective experiences. It is my intention that the viewers can identify within the pieces their own ritual practices and forms of remembrance, triggering sympathetic responses. Empathy is a way to create affinity and community, something that is necessary for grieving families.
I would like to conclude this chapter with a quote from Jill Bennett citing Gilles Deleuze:
Deleuze coins the term encountered sign to describe the sign that is felt, rather than recognized or perceived through cognition. Deleuze’s argument is not simply, however, that sensation is an end in itself, but that feeling is a catalyst for critical inquiry or deep thought… For Deleuze, affect or emotion is a more effective trigger for profound thought because of the way in which it grasps us, forcing us to engage involuntarily: “More important than thought there is ‘what leads to thought’… impressions which force us to look, encounters which force us to interpret, expressions which force us to think” [emphasis added] (Bennett 2005, 7).
Deleuze’s quote suggests that encountering strong emotions can cause powerful impressions on people, which can trigger empathic responses. If the viewers can experience
55 sympathy through an installation, they may be able to connect with the pieces and the topic in a more meaningful way. The aim of Novem is then, to produce an affective response in order to encourage reflection and spark the interest in learning more about feminicide and its aftermath, both in Mexico and in Canada. Empathy is a step forward into the creation of supportive communities for the bereaved.
56 CONCLUSION
As we have seen, the narrow patriarchal stereotypes that are imposed on women, the virgin and the prostitute, contributes to the generalized context of gender violence in Mexico.
Binary constructs and the objectification of women dehumanize them and apparently justifies the violence which can lead to feminicide. The term feminicide, the extreme gender-related violence that culminates in the death of a woman (Weil 2016, 1128), also encompasses the
Mexican socio-political context, where corruption and neglect are institutionalized.
Furthermore, as with many other feminicides throughout the country, grieving the victims is a complex situation for the families.
Even though each feminicide results from different circumstances, unique to each case, pain is widespread and grieving a communal affair. Grieving processes and mourning rituals are part of every society, and dictate the norms that frame expected behaviours, and appropriate spiritual expressions (Doka 2002, 6). In feminicide cases, the mourners are deprived of their right to grieve and are isolated. Their grieving process is disturbed for reasons such as: the lack of dignified treatment by the police and justice ministers; the lack of recognition of legitimate victims and social stigma; corruption during legal proceedings; lack of a body to bury; and even threats to the bereaved families. Moreover, the uncertainty of these circumstances causes distress similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and constantly wear the mourners down physically and psychologically (Boss 1999, 24). This aftermath is what my thesis exhibition Novem focuses on.
Through my artworks, I explore the effect of feminicide: the strong emotions of the bereaved families derived from these outrageous crimes. My practice is centered in the expanded empathic responses discussed in relation to Affective Theory and Forensic
Aesthetics, and supported mainly by Jill Bennet’s Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and
57 Contemporary Art. My work derives from a form of violence that is tearing Mexico apart, and is influenced by artists like Doris Salcedo, Teresa Margolles, Christi Belcourt, and Jaime
Black. I draw inspiration from their common approach to social issues, collective memory, and how they exploit the argument of repetition in their practices, each of them in their own particular way.
Thanks to the data gathered throughout my MFA I was able to explore materials, techniques and metaphors, which manifested through my previous iterations:
Untitled/Unnoticed (2017), Quotidian Patterns (2018) and Unweaving Foundations (2018).
The later one meant a big step for me towards my thesis exhibition, because I started exploring rebozos. A traditional garment with connections to gender roles and mourning practices, rebozos provided richness to my concept. As a result of the experience of creating
Unweaving Foundations, my practice moved towards addressing the difficulties that bereaved families have while grieving their loss. It also moved towards addressing the impact that mourning rituals and community support have for the grievers.
Novem consists of a series of nine crystallized rebozos. The garments, hanging from the ceiling, are in different degrees of unravelling and crystallized with salt, creating intricate and organic formations around the tangled threads. The black colour of the rebozos contrasts dramatically with the parts covered by the salt crystals. Another work on the floor, resembling hair, is mounted on a small round plinth that elevates it from the floor and makes the delicate crystalized outline appear to float. In addition, there is a piece consisting of unravelled rebozos in the process of crystallization, submerged in a saline solution. Along with this work there is a black chalice with salt, from which the viewer is invited to add a pinch to the water, as a small gesture of sympathy. The installation’s feeling of unease is
58 enhanced by an audio component that consists of almost unintelligible voices of women praying.
In Novem, the unravelled and crystallized rebozos resemble mementos kept after a death and forgotten remains. Because of their hair-like quality, the pieces serve as mourning keepsakes similar to old Victorian grieving traditions. Furthermore, salt functions as a purifying or cleansing element from the violence referenced in the artworks. The anointing of the rebozos with salt and water is a process that offers a soothing ritual for the wound that feminicide represents.
In addition, the inclusion of a ritualized creation process, echoes the repetitive methods that I employed to make the works, as well as the novenarios prayers whispered through the audio component. These elements found throughout my creative practice emphasize the conflicting interrupted and unresolved emotions associated with feminicide.
My creative process also references the syncretic mix of Indigenous and Catholic traditions from Mexico, reflected on the diverse dichotomies present in the work: of remembrance and oblivion; of purification and destruction; of healing but also burning the performing hands.
This process is reminiscent of the complexities of grieving the victims of feminicide in
Mexico, of the impotence and inability to do more than pray.
Even though feminicide and its aftermath are ghastly issues, the purpose of my practice is not to shock the audience with violent imagery. Rather, I aim to immerse them in an atmosphere that will encourage the viewers to explore the space, and little by little connect those violent events and distressing emotions with the uncertainty and powerlessness that the bereaved are confronted with. Because of this, my art enhances the understanding of the effects of feminicide on families by the immersive experience achieved in the gallery and the interactive elements of the installation. By encountering such strong emotions, an empathic
59 response can be triggered in the viewer, which may enable a more meaningful connection to the topic and the affected families.
Novem is a step forward into the creation of supportive communities for the bereaved, something that I consider is the next field to explore in my artistic practice. Feminicide in
Mexico is an important subject to draw attention to, but I’m aware that in Canada there exists a similar problematic with the thousands of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and
Girls. It is not the intention of my work to divert attention from local issues but connect with them and demonstrate how widespread gender violence is. Further research into the topic will involve community-engagement projects, based on expanding borders and finding commonalities between Mexican and Canadian communities. My future work will aim to open the dialogue and collaboration, explore artistic practices as activism, and build aesthetic experiences as a door to social action.
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