As part of my collaboration in the 2nd year of Fine Art – UCS, first I did an interview with a Portuguese woman who had suffered domestic violence at her wedding about 30 years. This lady told me her story of suffering for a long time, and when she decided to put a stop to this situation, some of their 3 children not accepted her decision to leave her husband, already sick with cancer and he died three months after her leaves home and leave everything behind and go in search of a new love found. She ensures that lives now a fairy tale, by happiness today. I just hear her story, and I let her feel the will to the narrative what happened; she cried and told me: “I feel relieved to be able to tell my story and if possible transmit to other women my experience and courage to reverse the story of violence.” After hearing her, I communicated her that I would make a presentation to the public in Portuguese restaurant, addressing the subject domestic violence, and this would be a way for me to try raise awareness the people about this issue.
My presentation was a dinner party with a group of women my friends and other people present at the Portuguese restaurant in Thetford also were able to watch the performance. There were a lot of laughs, either perhaps to relax the nervousness of some women by to think the action performance was funny at a public place in which I did the performance or some of them identified themselves within the action. However, sometimes I could not hold the smile, Instead of showing suffering. This was a mix of everything while I could hear someone ask for silence because the subject was serious. After I finished the act, I ordered the collaboration of dinner participants to write their declaration on the subject. By the participation and the public attention, I can say that my goal was achieved.
This performance was the same as I did in the plinth UCS, however, in a different environment. It was really a party, as it was the proposal of the theme. At this day, I was wearing the same clothes and make-up like of the first performance, but I did not use the mask. I acted like if my partner was beating me. However I brought for this event a subject matter already known to everyone, but despite this it is worth always strengthen the feminine consciousness. Afterward, I asked for the collaboration of the women at dinner for writes something about what they think about the domestic violence. I left the reflection for each of the women: How long a woman should be submissive to her partner with this violent attitude?
