Boryana Rossa and Oleg Mavromati: Woman President

Bulgarian artist Boryana Rossa responds in her works to processes of globalization and the transition of post-Communist countries to a capitalist economy. She succeeds in reclaiming control of her body and positions herself as a woman along the shifting axes of gender, nationality, politics, and economy. Rossa defines herself as a heterosexual woman with a queer identity. She operates on the seam between feminist/gendered performance art and queer activism – a field that has gained prominence in Bulgaria and in Russia since the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Rossa seeks to heighten awareness of the power mechanisms that construct gender hierarchies, and to construct alternative gender scenarios. Her works subvert the binary model of the sexes, addressing such issues as androgyny, asexuality, the mechanical body, voluntary violence, and the faulty, victimized body. The project Woman President (2011) was created in collaboration with her partner, Oleg Mavromati, whose artistic actions also tend to focus on self-mutilation and exploring his own vulnerability.

The video screened here addresses the assassination of President Kennedy – a formative event that is the focus of a number of American myths. The young, charismatic, handsome, and womanizing president faces the lone, anti-social assassin as a representation of the struggle between the "good" and the "bad." The violent act of murder repeats itself in American history and popular culture, in literature and in film.

These myths are reversed in the film by Rossa and Mavromati: the woman from the post-Communist country takes the place of the ultimate American hero. In her own body she experiences his vulnerability and demise. It is only by means of suffering that the victimized and defective female body reclaims its socio-political visibility. Thus, the formative event is given an ironic representation and is even romantically eroticized. The alternative scenario raises questions: to what degree are we prejudiced with regard to the proper sex of leaders? Is a future possible in which woman will also constitute an ideal of physical, intellectual, and moral supremacy?

This work is also critical of the media, which emphasizes selective aspects of public events and presents to the public faulty standards for analyzing reality. The assassinated woman president is here shown as a passive figure that surrenders to the interpretation offered by the media. The work asks: Do we give thought to the political program of the few women who fulfill key roles in government? Or are we habituated to consider only the appearance, clothing, accessories, and sex appeal of these women? What is the connection between the media image of public figures and their actual ability to initiate political action?

Boryana Rossa was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1972. She lives and works in Bulgaria and in USA

Oleg Mavromati was born in Volgograd, Russia, in 1965. He lives and works in Bulgaria and in USA