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ART PROJECT AIMS TO VISUALIZE AND BUILD PEACE; OPPOSE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN On Friday, March 8, 2002, International Women’s Day, the Women
in Black Art Project 2002 will conduct silent vigils in Washington, DC
before the US Capitol, the State Department, the Vietnam Memorial, the
White House and the entrance to Arlington Cemetery. For exact times the
vigils will take place at each location, please contact Mary Jo Aagerstoun
(see above for phone and email information). The vigils will begin at
7 AM and rotate to each location throughout the day. The final vigil will
take place 4-5 PM. We expect the locations to be in the order listed above.
The Women in Black Art Project’s March 8th vigils are part of the international mobilization called for by V-Day on the theme “Afghanistan is Everywhere,” meaning that women the world over not only are in solidarity with Afghan women in their efforts to overcome repression, and end violence, but are determined to act to oppose the same conditions of violence, oppression, invisibility and other forms of inequality that continue to plague millions of women everywhere. After March 8th, the costumes will circulate in exhibition to various cities in the US and internationally. A book and CD-Rom are planned. The Women in Black Art Project 2002 is a cultural activism project that seeks to enhance the visualization and building of peace. Violence in all its forms, including war, affects women and their children disproportionately. We stand in solidarity with all people who are seeking peaceful solutions to disputes at interpersonal, inter-community and international levels, especially in situations where women and girls’ lives are at risk. The Women in Black Art Project should not be construed as supporting any policy or practice of any individual country or political entity. The Women in Black Art Project 2002 seeks to encourage activism by feminist peace advocates by providing a dramatic art focal point for use during demonstrations in behalf of peace and against violence against women. Feminist peace groups have been integrally involved in the development of the art, and the art will ultimately go back to them for their use in organizing for peace and a halt to violence as a means of “resolving” conflicts between nations and people. The costumes are photo-collaged with images and texts we have collected with the help of Women in Black groups in the US, Europe and the Middle East, the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, the Feminist Peace Network, Amnesty International, and other peace and feminist groups. The costumes convey both grief and loss, and the power of perseverance in the face of the persistence of violence, war and the continuing denial of many basic human rights to more than half the world's population (women and girls). The silent vigils to be conducted before major buildings and monuments in Washington, DC will be accompanied by a sound art project by British artist Jonty Kemper: "Kenotaphion." Semper created a CD from 70 years of moments of silence recorded by the BBC and British Movietone News during Armistice Day observances at the Cenotaph war memorial from 1932 to the present. The women wearing the costumes will move in cadence with the tolling of Big Ben’s bells heard during each recorded moment of silence. The artists who designed and constructed the costumes are all residents of West Palm Beach, Florida. They are: Gay Kanuth, Alice and Craig Ludwig, Pamela Anderson Porath, Jane Jones and Marja Boyer. The photographer of the project is Colleen Young of Takoma Park, Maryland and the videographer of the project is Flannery Griffith of the District of Columbia. Mary Jo Aagerstoun, an art historian from the District of Columbia, conceptualized the project and is the overall coordinator. The Women in Black Art Project's most particular purpose is to encourage greater visibility for feminists’ activism in behalf of peace; and to encourage viewers to consider the evolving and compounding complexities of the escalating violence in various parts of the world, including Afghanistan and the Middle East, and especially the impact this has on women and their children. The project will encourage the feminists who deploy the costumes, and the viewers who see them, in exhibitions, in vigils and in the book and CD-Rom formats, to consider how to build a future in which the brutal effects of violence in all its forms might cease to characterize relations between peoples. We believe our project affirms the best of the human spirit, in its insistence that the most heroic acts are those that oppose the war-related violence and threats of violence that have become a terrible daily reality for many around the world. As feminists, we are particularly concerned that this violence, disproportionately affects the lives and prospects of women and their children the world over. We believe the aesthetics and didactic effect of the costumes will encourage the development of critical thinking, whether seen in a gallery or museum setting, or deployed in vigil, as we hope they will be continuously, and in many locations around the world, after the initial vigils in Washington, DC. |
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November 11, 2002
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