It ocurred to me that perhaps I should research other artists who have made FGM a subject for work.
Paula Rego, did a series of etchings on the subject in 2009, called Female Genital Mutilation. These were exhibited at the Malborough Fine Art Gallery and later reproduced in her 2012 book, Paula Rego: The Complete Graphic Work. They are disturblingly powerful and as the art critic Robert Hughes said, Paula Rego is the best painter of women’s experience alive.
Her images do not flinch from the horrendous reality of the FGM procedure. There are six etchings in the series showing the barbaric assault on young girls, by women whose own sexuality and femininity has been eviscerated likewise by their mothers and grandmothers. In these etchings the women are both white and black. To me this implies the collusion of all the races; the Western countries that know of the practice and allow it to happen in their own communities , and the whole swathes of African countries where FGM rates can be as high as 98 percent. The young girls held forceably down are black but the spectres of ravaged woman hood performing the rite are white, perhaps also implying that the ravaged females are stripped of all life and colour? There is one ray of hope however. The last etching in the series is called Escape, where a woman carries her child away unharmed. Another child , perhaps a doll, is at her feet with a bow where her genitals are. This could imply that her sexuality is still a gift for her, something for her to untie rather than being quasi castrated.
Without this release, this element from which hope can grow, I wonder if the series would be almost too graphicly horrendous?
While researching FGM in art, I came accross an interesting post and discussion from Sweden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eivcagwvbQk
A Dual Heritage Artist, Makode Aj Linde, had created a cake in the shape of a black woman’s body, substituting his own head, (made up to look like an architypal “black” person) and invited people to cut into the cake – ie cut off the genitals first, while he screamed with each incision.
This caused immense controversy. Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, the Swedish minister of culture, laughingly cut the cake and fed bits to the artist. People called for her to resign but the artist defended her saying his piece was to highlight FGM and its horrors.
There were lenghy discussions on the various comments pages about whether this piece was racist, and if it could be such as the artist himself was black. However, my own opinion, and that of many others was that it was deeply insensitive towards the unfortunate women who have undergone FGM. The male artist may have been trying to highlight FGM but was this an appropriate way?
The video shows white people happily cutting into wretched cake, chatting away as they eat it. The metaphor of the slicing of the cake could perhaps apply to the way Africa was sliced up with colonialism.
The cake chomping audience was rather insensitive, I think, to the barbarity of the practice. That’s what disturbed me. Yet how can a male artist really think he can make a Clitordectomy cake into a viable statement, and bellow theatrically with each cut slice, without causing offence somehwere?
But perhaps the controversy and the discussion it evoked was his aim? At least he got FGM into the main news and made people examine how they felt about their own passivity towards the subject.
Paula Rego’s handling of the subject however is hauntingly appropriate and also offers a solution: the hope of escape with women firmly turning their back on this appalling practice – which with education and outlawing, is definitely possible.
Is all art trying to raise awareness of FGM good?
Is mine? And as a white woman could it be deemed as inappropriate as some said the Clitordectomy cake was for a black male artist?
I hope not. I think that as a woman I have the right to stop this hideous control and mutilation of my fellow females.
