There’s not a lot of information regarding the image but I felt compelled to display and acknowledge the artist Zanele Muholi and what her work stands for. She is a south African artist that created artwork using menstrual blood.Muholi work tells a story of black lesbians in South Africa and represent “curative rape. She believes that by using menstrual blood as a medium it empowers her subject, expressing pain and lost. I personally think that the medium empowers her work, the image itself looks attractive but underneath the surface it suppresses all the badness and pain that still exists in peoples life that needs to be brought to the fourth.
Even though the subject between my work and Muholi are completely different they both share similarities with regards to women being treated like pieces of meat instead of individuals and being respected.
“Drawing on her experiences as a lesbian in South Africa, Muholi’s body of work speaks eloquently to the violence and attempts at erasure visited upon her community. In my mind, one of the most important and effective means of creating real change in any community is by inspiring people to personally recognize and respect the humanity of the “others” experiencing brutal violence. In this capacity, art can succeed where politics sometimes fail.” (Jamie, 2012.http://www.autostraddle.com/artist-attack-zanele-muholi-13277/)
I continue to bleed each time I read about rampant curative rapes in my ‘democratic’ South Africa. I bleed every time queer bodies are violated and refused citizenship due to gender expression and sexual orientation within the African continent. I constantly bleed when I hear about brutal murders of black lesbians in our townships and surrounding areas. I’m scarred and scared as I don’t know whose body will be next to be buried. I bleed because our human rights are ripped. I cry and bleed as mothers, lovers, friends, relatives lose their beloved ones, let alone the children that become orphans because of trans/queerphobic violence. We bleed, our life cycles invaded, we bleed against the will of our bodies and beings.
– Zanele Muholi
