Artists Address Gender-Based Violence

“The Talking Cure” exhibit shows how art can allow us to express ourselves and to find healing after violence.

This article features the work of eight artists who participated in the exhibit, at the University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum: Emma Sulkowicz, Yoko Ono, Sierra DeMulder, Luzene Hill, Lady Skollie, Frizz Kid, and Jenny Nijenhuis and Nondumiso Msimanga.

Through visual art, spoken word, interactive exhibits, and embodied performance, each artist invites viewers to reflect on gendered and sexual violence. They bring attention to the high rates of rape and sexual assault. They also highlight how silence or centering perpetrators can constitute complicity. In engaging with their own experiences of sexual violence, many of the artists testify to the resilience of survivors.

For decades, artists have questioned and subverted binaries of public and private, illustrating the ways the political pervades the personal, and [how] women and lgbt folks are denied the same access and security in both public and private space. Making art about sexual and gendered violence spotlights the painfully personal and isolating experience of rape and sexual assault and brings it into the public sphere.

SOURCE: Weisman Art Museum at University of Minnesota • AUTHOR: Elise Armani • LAST UPDATED: April 10, 2017