This is difficult not only because it's hard to find companies that want to support our initiative financially (FGM has got the word GENITAL in it, which does apparently not appeal to most Swiss companies. Starvation is for example a much nicer problem.), but it's also proved to be hard to find good artists that want to participate in the exhibition.
In a fantasy world, all artists would jump at the opportunity to use their art in a way that might actually be useful for someone else, like in this case helping to prevent the life long pain and suffering of circumcised African women . But that's in a fantasy world. In reality, most artists care more about their own name and that their art gets appropriate lighting and space. Yeack. I hurl just at the thought of the art school graduate who turned down our offer to let him participate in our exhibition because 'the space wasn't big enough, the light might not do his art works justice', plus he was worried that the other artists would not be well known/good enough! Christ, he should have been honored that we even considered him!
I have myself both studied art history and gone to art school, and have frequently been presented with the impossible question 'what is art'. There are of course an infinite number of possible answers to that question, all of which are equally true/false. A related problem though, which I find less impossible to find an explanation to, is that of 'what constitutes a good artist?'. Of course, training, creativity, hard work and a natural artistic talent comes in to it. But for me, curiosity, openness, bravery and a will to explore is equally important. Boring art is never good. And artists who are too busy staring at their own belly buttons to care about what is going on around them will have difficulties producing art that is actually interesting enough to be worth looking at. Unless he/she turns out to be an artistic genius of course, but what are the odds of that?
A couple of days ago I went to the exhibition of a young artist I know, and since both me and my college who I'd brought to his exhibition found his art interesting, we told him about our project and informed him a bit about FGM. His immediate response was 'Ok that's enough, I don't want to hear any more about it, it's too horrible'.
At that moment it struck me that I had reacted in exactly the same way when I first saw a documentary about this at my friend Ellen's place. The intrusion of such terrible facts and pictures into my mind was too overwhelming, and most of all I just wanted the facts and the pictures to go away. But at the same time, I obviously knew that the facts wouldn't change justs because I chose to block it out.
That is what made me not look away as I watched a whole village perform a circumcision without anesthetics and with a dirty needle on a terrified little girl who had stopped screaming because of the overwhelming pain and horror. And it was because of that reaction of wanting to look away that I decided that I need to participate in this project, and that I need to do my very best to try and make others see it as well without looking away. It sometimes takes some painful realisations to make people react.
And I guess that it wasn't until my artist friend explicitly addressed his desire to ignore the problem that I realised just how fine the line between ignorance and trying to make a difference actually is. And that ignorance can actually be a result of caring so much that the problem becomes unbearable, and trying to forget about it becomes a necessity. And perhaps this phenomenon is even more dangerous than ignoring because you really don't give a shit, because it prevents people who could actually make a difference from doing so. And this is why it's so important to force these people to see what they don't want to see; because eventually they won't be able to stand it anymore, and will hopefully try and fight the problem instead of ignoring it.
Shortly after he had expressed his will to ignore the existence of FGM I asked this young artist if he'd be willing to participate in our 'artists united against FGM' exhibition. He replied "Well, it's such a difficult subject... so yes, I'd definitely be interested."
Links: http://www.artistsunited.org/Welcome.html
http://iac-ciaf.com/
Posts
3 comments:
I saw a lot of gential mutilation when I was in Africa. I found it strange that mutilating the genitals was almost par for the course, amongst the janjaweed, as though that was their favoured method of attack. I saw women luring men in to the bushes with promises of.. well, you can guess. And then women running away, holding a bloodied, flaccid penis. The screaming of the men was fucking awful.
I've a feeling those artists what turned you down aren't going to make a name for themselves. Most well known, modern artists are involved in worthwhile causes.
The exhibition sounds interesting. Shame I'm not in Switz. I've got loads of materials on the FGM situation that I'd be happy to shove in someone's face, making them see the terrible fucking atrocious shit going on in Africa.
Good luck getting some decent people to help.
For my twopenneth...
I read that feeling isolated or left out of a group produces stimulation in the brain almost identical to that of physical pain. I think it's the same with thinking about this type of subject, it feels almost like a physical pain. And the instinct you have with pain is of course to make it go away, which you can do by turning your mind's attention elsewhere.
Awareness has to be created of course, but it's not just about awareness. Dwelling on the details masochistically doesn't help anyone either. I don't need to an FGM operation, I don't need to see someone's limbs being blown off by a landmine and I don't need to see someone being slowly drowning while attempting to get to the Canary islands from Africa. I know this stuff is terrible. After I've been made aware of it, what I really want to know what can be done.
Nicely written post btw :)
Thanks for the comments, Johnny neurotic and Kexfall.
Yeah, it is a fucking horrific problem, and the bizarr thing is that it's not even linked to religion like a lot of people think. It's just social pressure and fear of breaking with the tradition.
The reason why it's so important to make people aware, is that that it's the first step towards change. If we make enough (rich) people concerned about the problem, we'll be able to raise enough money to perhaps start making a difference at least for some women.
We are doing the exhibition in cooperation with an organisation called GAMCOTRAP (www.gamcotrap.gm)that is working actively to stop FGM in Gambia. All the potential money that we might raise from making people aware will go to support GAMCOTRAP's work (which is focused mainly on creating networks and informing the Gambians).
So, my point is that if you shove horrible facts in people's faces efficiently enough, they probably won't be able to ignore it in the end. And the good thing about living in Geneva is that there are lots of rich people here, and rich people can afford to brush things like these off their shoulders by donating some money...
Post a Comment