ATTENTION TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN 400 Women
May 4-16, 2012: moving exhibition comes to the Netherlands
The controversial exhibition by British artist Tamsyn Challenger is coming to the Netherlands. From May 4 to 16, 400 Women will be on display at the SugarFactory factory in Halfweg. 400 Women is an installation of approximately 200 portraits of murdered or missing women. Each portrait tells its own poignant story in a powerful way. One of the girls portrayed is Dutch citizen Hester van Nierop, who was found murdered in a hotel room in Ciudad Juárez in 1998 at the age of 28.
Dutch artists
400 Women is a response to the brutal rape and murder of thousands of women in the Mexican industrial city of Ciudad Juárez in particular, and to violence against women in general. It is an impressive work of art, a massive cry for attention. Challenger has brought together the work of nearly 200 international artists, including Paula Rego and Maggi Hambling, as well as Dutch artists Fred Schley, Tisna Westerhof, Wim Heldens, Marcelle Hanselaar, Be Van Der Heide, and Nan Mulder. The conceptual exhibition of portraits is always displayed in a very specific location.
Raw industrial environment
For example, it was first shown in 2010 in the Shoreditch Town Hall Basement in London and in 2011 in an abandoned school building in Edinburgh. From May 4 to 16, 2012, the work will be on display at Sugar City, the old CSM sugar factory in Halfweg. A raw industrial environment that reflects the same atmosphere as that of the assembly factories in Juárez where many of the kidnapped and murdered girls worked.
Photo cards
The idea for 400 Women was born in 2006 when Tamsyn Challenger traveled to Mexico and came into contact with the families of missing and murdered women. Challenger was particularly moved by her encounter with Consuelo Valenzuela, whose then 17-year-old daughter Julieta has been missing since 2001. Consuelo handed out photo cards of Julieta everywhere she went, and she pressed one of those cards into Challenger's hand. Challenger recalls: "Julieta's face, looking up at me, was such a poverty of an image. It had been reproduced from a snapshot, but the face was blurred and faded; she had no eyes really and a bleached-out nose. I think I just wanted to bring her face back."
Indictment
During the long flight home, the idea for 400 Women was born. The power of the artwork lies in the cohesion of the whole, in which each artist represents a murdered woman who has been carefully chosen for him or her. Each portrait brings a woman to life. Each image should be seen as an indictment of global violence against women.
Retablo
Challenger obtained the photos of these women from the Mexican branch of Amnesty International, the Esther Chavez collection at the University of New Mexico, the group Nuestra Hijas de regreso a casa, and the Casa Amiga Rape Crisis Center in Ciudad Juárez. No photos were available for some of the women. In those cases, Challenger asked the artist involved to incorporate the woman's name into the artwork. Each portrait was created in a format measuring approximately 14 by 10 inches. These dimensions are based on a 'Retablo', the altar icons of the Catholic Church, which is still very influential in Mexico.
Snowball effect
The explanations for the murders are diverse and range from serial killers to organ trafficking, from domestic violence to the use of women as payment for drug cartels. The large scale on which women are disappearing in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America testifies to a cultural disregard for women's rights. Despite media attention, very little has changed. Amnesty International reported in 2003 that approximately 370 women had been murdered and that a large number, particularly young women, were missing. The murderers are not prosecuted in this region. This has a snowball effect in the rest of the country. The Mexican authorities have seriously failed to investigate these murders. In August 2006, the Mexican federal government even stopped the investigation altogether because no federal laws had been broken.
Visitor information
400 Women will be exhibited at the Sugar City Sugar Factory in Halfweg from May 4 to May 17, 2012.
Address: Haarlemmerstraatweg 7 in Halfweg
Opening hours: Wednesday-Sunday 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., outside these hours by appointment
More information can be found at http://400women.tumblr.com and Twitter @400women
