'Ginas in the Atelier

“'Ginas in the Atelier,” focuses on non-essentialist vagina art within the context of ongoing patriarchal, homophobic and racialized sexual violence. I briefly contextualize contemporary U.S. Latina work by recalling a... [ view full abstract ]

“'Ginas in the Atelier,” focuses on non-essentialist vagina art within the context of ongoing patriarchal, homophobic and racialized sexual violence. I briefly contextualize contemporary U.S. Latina work by recalling a culturally different visual repertoire: vagina representations from ancient, “pre-history” in various parts of the globe. Then I take note of foundational 1970s feminist performance and multimedia installation work that brings visibility to women as fully human through contestation and displacement of the vagina as signifier of a normalized-as-natural violent patriarchal imaginary. I also briefly address the 1990s backlash against feminist, queer, and people of color art, given that it featured feminist and queer sexualities and critiques, then look at more recent Latina/o performance installation work articulated through the vaginal, including Favianna Rodriguez’s 2015 Pussy Power Imaginary multimedia interactive project. I consider both the pitfalls of neo(colonial) essentialist binary thought and decolonial shifts in vaginal discourses.