This webpage is an exploration of Art and its many functions within an oppressive society. It is a digital collaging of artists, artwork, and ideas; a conversation that is ongoing… This overview is broad and the work exists within many different contexts, time, and space.
How to navigate this space:
I encourage you to begin with this interview which explores the relationships between art, activism, healing, and liberation:
https://youtu.be/OuKbbnHNNfY
Big thanks to my professors, Stephanie Gibson (Art/Architectural Historian), Gwendolyn Beetham (Author and Gender Studies Program Director), and Ricardo Bracho (Theater Artist, Writer, and Gender Studies Professor) for engaging with these questions and providing us with so much to think about.
After sitting with this, feel free to explore the various works of art categorized below. At the end of the page, there is a glossary with loose attempts to describe the words liberation, art, and healing. You may add your own words to the working definitions if you wish.
Body Art// Performance Art
Mostly women artists in the U.S. of the ’60s-’80s (and their successors) who pioneered the body art movement as a direct response to the white-male-dominated art world. Picture these pieces against a backdrop of abstract expressionism (1940s-50s), pop art (1950s-70s), and minimalism (1950s-70s)– movements that were focused on materiality, art world politics, and art itself. In contrast, the Body artists / Performance artists used art as a means for capturing, expressing, transforming, and consensually experiencing the constraints society has placed on their bodies– taking the political capacities of art to a deeply personal and embodied place. These works reconnect art to humanity in a way that goes beyond critiques of commercialization and theory. They present a visual language for the constraints of gender, race, and sexuality that are still prevalent today. The female form has long been the subject of art– an object of beauty and desire to be gazed upon and consumed– but through performance, many women have reclaimed their bodies as a vessel for creation, connection, and exploration in ways that reject beauty & the male gaze.
Some images contain links to other web pages. Feel free to click and scroll through or tap the linked images to learn more.
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How Art Preserves Culture, History
Beyond the singular “artist” there are more collective practices of art, belonging to specific cultures which are passed down through generations. In this way art functions as a literal documentation of history, preserving important stories and practices. In this section, I share two different examples of this. Bermudian Gombay ceremonies– mentioned previously by Gibson in the interview– hold the stories of enslavement, resistance, continuance, and celebration of the African diaspora within Bermuda. As well as artist Cecilia Vicunas’ attempt at reconnecting with and reviving her indigenous heritage through creating Quipus. Click on the images to look closer and learn more.
Gombey
The Gombey is a symbol of Black Bermudian resistance against enslavement. This dance involves so many forms of art– music, dance, performance, mask making, textile work- all of which function as a ritual for connection, inspiration, tradition, and an honoring of one’s past. “Watching the gombeys dance in the streets to a rhythmic drumbeat, one is
reminded of the struggle of one’s ancestors and that they too once donned the same
costumes and danced the same dances. It feels as if one is witnessing history” (Gibson, 2019)
Cecilia Vicuña Chilean Poet & Visual Artist (1948- present) – Quipus
“Quipus (kee-poo)… were recording devices used by the Inka Empire, the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The word quipu comes from the Quechua word for “knot.” A quipu usually consisted of colored, spun, and plied thread or strings from llama hair. Historic documents indicate that quipus were used for record-keeping and sending messages… most of the existing quipu are from the Inka period, approx 1400 – 1532 CE. The Inka Empire stretched from Ecuador through central Chile and was centered on the Andean mountain ranges of Peru. There are approximately 600 surviving quipu in museums and private collections around the world.” (Smithsonian, 2011)
Vicuña has been using her art practice to create her own versions of Quipus as a way to connect with her indigenous heritage and also challenge the “pastness” that is used to talk about them within colonial contexts. She aims to bring the Quipu into the present moment and continue discussions of our relationship with the land, Indigenous people in the Americas, and challenge ideas of the “past.”
https://artreview.com/cecilia-vicunas-incomplete-elegy/
https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/quipu
Literature
Written language is an important tool for the preservation and development of thoughts and ideas, the documentation of personal and collective experiences, and a medium through which poetics, beauty, emotion, abstraction, and fantasy can all be expressed.
Forugh Farrokhzad- Iranian-American Poet (1934-1967)
A symbol for Iranian women and women worldwide, she was one of the first women in Iran to openly write about the female perspective, gender, desire, and film. She defied gender norms and expectations placed on her, giving women a voice to look up to. As women and Iran and worldwide still battle against the patriarchy, her poems still hold so much power and truth. This website below is full of translations of her work, and writings which express her impact and just how treasured she continues to be.
Assata (1987) written by Assata Shakur (1947- current)
Assata is an Autobiographical narrative of the life of Assata Shakur. This book describes Shakur’s life, from her childhood to her exile in Cuba. During COINTELPRO, the U.S. government did everything in its power to frame, criminalize, and brand Assata and other revolutionaries of the time as dangerous, murderous threats. This book is a poignant account of her experiences, a successful attempt at humanizing her and other victims of COINTELPRO’s attack on revolutionaries. She carefully illustrates how her experiences radicalized her, how her politics shifted over time, and the way she began to see the underlying threads of connection between all struggles for liberation. Through this personal account of an important part of American history, we see that at the root of everything she stood for was a deep love for the people who had been abused and failed by the American Government. In this novel, she gives us so much– a story that is so relevant to the continued discussions of abolition and deserves its place in curriculums dedicated to American history.
http://www.assatashakur.org/index.htm
Photography & Film
The camera- a tool to capture visual poetry, stories, people, and movements. It has been one of the most monumental tools for remembering, memorializing, and humanizing. Here are a collection of films and photography based in the U.S. which preserve important histories.
The Curse of Quon Gwon explores the struggles of a young Chinese American woman trying to balance her Chinese culture with the American world she is now a part of. The film explores ideas of tradition and modernism through marriage in a way that was far beyond its time. It is the earliest known Asian-American film we have today and it was almost completely lost. Wong was told the film would never be successful and struggled to have it shown in theaters because there was no market for films from a Chinese perspective. The only Asian representation in the U.S. at the time was extremely orientalist and created by and for white audiences. In 2005 the film reels were restored after being discovered in the basement of Wong’s descendants. It is now free to the public and screened as an important part of American film history. There are sections of the film that were lost or could not be restored, but it still serves as resistance– despite the intended erasure of Asian voices within U.S. history, this film carries the creative stories of Marion Wong and the entire cast.
This avante-garde film explores a woman’s discontentment with her marriage and disgust with her husband. The film takes us through the internal world of Madame Beaudet, her fears, her anger, her desires, and her self-reflection.
Marsha P Johnson (1945-1992) & Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002) were friends and activists who fought for Trans and Gay Liberation. The fight for queer liberation has often been white-washed and very much centered around cis gay white men. Marsha and Sylvia– two trans women, were defying gender norms despite it being even more dangerous back then. To see photos of Trans folks, smiling, resisting, loving, and embracing their truth loudly and boldly is a blessing. They may not be alive today but their memory and their impact can never be erased.
Art on the Grounds// Art for Protest
Art has always been an important tool used to share messages and call our attention to certain movements, social issues, and statistics. Images of past protests would look very different without the signage that people create. Where photo documentation lacks the audio component of protests, the literal voices of people, the signage, and the art of protestors capture and preserve the voices of that generation. The Guerilla Girls, are just one anonymous group that has utilized art as a way to challenge not only the misogyny of the art world but issues of mass incarceration and abortion rights as well.
Art for Pleasure, Beauty, Joy, Stillness, Introspection, Play, Curiosity
Art doesn’t always have to be a direct response to trauma and oppression. We deserve to create and experience work that is designed for pleasure and wonder. Art has the power to inspire us and remind us of the beauty and amazement of being alive. Art can help us tap into our inner child, to experience wholeness and play and imagination– things that we are often taught to leave behind.
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Glossary:
Each image will take you to the collaborative Google document. Feel free to just look or add your own words (use a different color or font if you feel called to) and/or cite other relevant texts/art.
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Final Reflection
I believe in the power of our creative capacities to construct avenues that can lead us to a better world. Yet, when sitting with the cruelties of rape, brutality, and gender-based violence (mentioned throughout this website and course), I often struggle to place exactly where art fits into all of it. I ask myself, now that we are unearthing the specific history of sexual violence at Penn, how can I respond to this information?
My goal for this page is to illustrate hope; hope as a seed of action. Regardless of the violence happening in the world, people have created things that are beautiful, and meaningful, and illustrate paths forward. In many ways, this art has preserved the voices of people who the dominant culture attempted to erase. It also stands as a reminder of all the people who have been erased, whose voices have been silenced. In remembering the violence of the past, we must also remember and imagine the resistance that happened too– the love, dreams, hope, creativity, and vulnerability that continued despite. Hope illuminates the path forward, and many of us continually turn to art as a source of that hope.
Trauma Porn to Title IX: Gender Based Violence at Penn 