02/03/2016
English version:
How would you feel if your sister, partner, mother, daughter or another woman you know, was the victim of sexual violence? And have you ever thought about the fact that ALL women are actually someone's sister, partner, mother, or daughter?
When a woman is subjected to sexual violence - the result is not only the abuse that occurs in the moment - if she survives. No, it affects the rest of her life and it will affect you and me. Her experience creates more fear and control - but what we need is more love, curiosity and freedom. It affects how we meet, see and respect each other.
Through Vaginarts, the arts, the encounters and conversations that may arise out of this, we want to focus on the female perspective and also point out that it affects all of us - even if the physical experience is someone else’s. This also gives some who have suffered and survived, a chance to be seen and have their voices heard, without having to face the shame that is so common because talking about this from a personal perspective is difficult and vulnerable – and for the listener as well.
To have this particular perspective feels right - because it is women who are the overwhelming majority of those who suffer – and that is just because they are women and have a va**na. And the few women here, who show themselves and tell their stories can maybe be seen as representatives for the millions of women who are affected, but who never had the chance to be seen or heard.
We choose to do it in a way that might be provocative to many, and there is a reason. We want to reach more people and to make this more accessible, so more can learn, understand, feel and respond with empathy. We want questions to be brought up, conversations to start, understandings to happen that support a change in the behaviors and values of each one of us. The real change will never take place by having the police on every street corner - although it now seems to be an important element in preventing more abuse from happening. What is needed is a change that starts in each of us – away from fear and control, and towards love, curiosity and freedom.
This is also a way to say - your mother, sister or daughter could possibly be one of the women you can encounter here. The anonymity of this means that it can be anyone around you who participates - in the same way as it applies to the abuse – it can happen everywhere and to any woman…
These are women who all come from Medellin, who voluntarily and without compensation acted as models to make this possible. They did it as part of their own healing, as their own personal statement and to contribute to a change in society. In addition to the images, each woman/image has her own story, in which she wrote about her personal relationship to the sexual violence she experienced, how it affected her then and how it affects her now.
