Performance about femicide
Thursday, 23.05.2024, 16:00 Uhr
The action begins with the performer artist sitting on the floor in a fetal position at the center of a room. Her partner distributes rectangular pieces of cloth to the spectators. These pieces have phrases related to psychological violence written on them.
When all the pieces of cloth have been pinned to the performance artist on the floor, the assistant covers her in red tape, fitting the pieces of cloth to her body in the manner of a funerary bundle. Then she proceeds to distribute another group of written pieces of cloth, this time of a different color, and the same process is repeated. The second layer has phrases related to bodily violence.
Finally, the last group of clothes are distributed for the same action to be repeated. These represent feelings. The performer’s partner proceeds to surround the body, this time with red wool, and later she covers it with a black garbage bag: The woman in the middle of the room thus turns into the Funerary Bundle of a femicide.
This performance seeks to represent the complexity of gender violence and its layers. Most femicides are constructed that way. They usually start with strong psychological violence that emotionally breaks the victims down. Then violence often escalates unto physical violence, which becomes more latent with increasingly aggressive pushes, blows and other forms of physical violence that continue to be accompanied by insults.
This work focuses on the process whereby this gradual escalation may lead to femicide, and takes into account the side of the victims and survivors who are often questioned about their lack of agency or initiative to escape their abusive situation. This performance seeks to answer the question of: Why don’t they get away?
When your feet and hands are tied up with tapes and wools, and you are covered with pieces of cloth and a bag that does not allow you to see your surroundings, it is not that easy to get up.
My name is Susana Vasquez Torres and I am a Peruvian artist living in Berlin. I was born in the chaotic and incredible city of Lima in 1990. In 2010 I started my artistic education at the National School of Fine Arts of Peru (ENSABAP) from where I graduated in 2016 in Fine Art with focus in painting. In 2018 I moved to Berlin looking for new horizons for my artistic process and to study the master’s degree Art in Context at the Berlin University of Art, which I finished in 2022.
In my artistic projects I work with different disciplines such as painting, performance, graphic arts, animation and video. I am also passionate about artistic mediation, art education and the artistic use of public space. And how from the latter we can position ourselves as a community and inhabitants of a city.