“A photograph displays a group of adolescent girls in an orderly line. While being gazed upon by an audience, presumably village members, the still image shows the girl’s bodies and their reed skirts in rhythmic motion. They dance. They dance in celebration of a new phase in their lives that is to come, bearing an identity that allows them to walk amongst their community with their heads held high. In this dance, they celebrate their passage into womanhood.“
For every girl participating in the ceremony, the hope is that, at the end, each can walk away and proudly state, ‘I am a woman.’ Unfortunately, this mantle comes at a price. It comes with the removal of a crucial part of themselves. FGM/C is a non-medical procedure that involves the partial or complete removal of the female genital organs, such as the clitoris or labia. It is predominantly practiced in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, but exists in alarmingly large numbers in Eastern Europe and Latin America, as well as the diaspora.
Various flowers are utilised for each artwork – camellias, sunflowers, roses, sun-kissed, and many more, each of them depicting their own specific innocence and floral beauty. These qualities are channelled onto the young women. The pain and loss of an essential part of their bodies are replaced by the splendour, virtue, and brilliance that the flowers inherently possess. They stand in the gap, and in a healing manner, enable the young women’s narratives to be transformed into a newness and wholeness that had previously been missing.
Flowers IV (Celebration) was shown as part of a Solo Exhibition ”One Thousand Voices” at The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, 06.02.19 - 21.06.19, Curated by Gcotyelwa Mashiqa and Sakhi Gcina. Image courtesy of the ZEITZ MOCAA
Dec 2022 | Collective Action Magazine
66
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator