Women in Protest: Reveal and Conceal

Women in Protest: Reveal and Conceal

The first part of the exhibition focuses on the notion of anonymity as a crucial component in contemporary female activism. This motif opposes the idea of intimate and personal familiarity with the female image.

Judith Butler in her book Precarious Life (2004) analyzes images of victims in the media. The victim’s narrative is always told in the first person. We identify with the victim by getting to know his or her family, education, and lifestyle. The victim is humanized and the viewer’s emotional connection with the victim is intensified. The anonymous mask, however, hides the victim’s face and undermines any attempt to frame the narrative in personal terms and identify with a single individual. In the case of Russian female activist group Pussy Riot, the spectator wishes not to unmask the protesters but instead seeks to understand their message. They make us wonder what they are capable of, who they are fighting for, and what they hope to achieve – promote human rights, topple an oppressive regime, or usher in a new era for humanity?

The emerging global phenomenon of performative female protest forms part of a sub-culture of activism in art and in the media. The second part of the exhibition focus on the vulnerability of the protesting woman and highlight the role of physical protest in contemporary activist movements. Physical protest uses the female body to challenge gender restrictions and promote legal reforms that benefit women. In this case, the body – covered or naked – becomes a primal and essential instrument of protest. The phenomenon can be traced back to the early days of political protest, which traditionally saw the use of one's body – marches, rallies, self-imposed confinement – as a tool in the service of a greater message. The body is also a symbol, a text that carries political connotations. Naked protest was used on various occasions as a strategy for effecting social change. For protesting women, the use of nudity as an act of resistance came in direct reaction to the sexual oppression of women. Because most societies dictate that citizens remain clothed in public, nudity is an effective way of drawing attention to social issues, and it demonstrates protestors’ readiness to sacrifice themselves for a political cause.

The works in this exhibition depict women warriors and rebels in pop culture and in the media. They elicit a palpable tension between violence and forcefulness on one side and gentleness and passion on the other, embodied by the provocative and unusual gestures committed by today's women protesters. These works expose the dialectic of power versus vulnerability, resistance versus endangerment. They wish to emphasize that activism and radical art can only survive if they are visible in the public space. Scandalous deeds and outrageous images have it in their power to preserve the effects of modern-day female activism for decades to come.