Feminist interventions in Eastern Europe and Latin America: a thematic overview
Author: Petra Šarin
Introduction
This blog post focuses on the brief thematic overview of feminist interventions, as Griselda Pollock calls artistic production made from a feminist standpoint, without reducing them to one aesthetic or essentialist category. The selected artworks were produced in Eastern Europe and Latin America and range from the beginning of the 20th century until the present moment. The represented artists and/or artworks were mentioned during our research seminar and in the discussions that followed, which served as a guideline for selection. However, the visualization is composed as an arbitrary mosaic with partially juxtaposed artworks from the two regions, but not exclusively conceptualized as such. Besides the ten topics illustrated in the selected artworks, many more have been raised by artistic practice in the two regions. Some of these also appear in the examples listed, since many artworks deal with several topics simultaneously. It is important to take account that the themes and issues are not only tackled in terms of content level (motifs, iconography, etc.) but also with regard to artistic media, such as embroidery and tapestry – i.e., applied arts considered to be low art within the Western hegemonic art system.
Some of the topics include:
- Rethinking the official history | marginalized histories;
- Racial identity | racism;
- Women’s bodies – bodies of subversion;
- Human psyche | troubling atmosphere;
- Reproduction of the social order | formation of docile subjects;
- Gendered labour;
- Non-binary | queer;
- Sustainability | environment | access to resources;
- Stereotypes in representation of women | beauty standards;
- Self-representation | self-narrative;
- Human relations | power dynamics;
- Colonization | decolonization | othering;
- Class consciousness;
- Sexual and other types of violence against women;
- Reproductive rights | motherhood;
- Critique of religious practices;
- Ageism;
- Women’s everyday life; etc.
