Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Art, has the power to convene dreams for pedagogical and material interventions in the struggle for bodily integrity, dignity, and safety. Artistic expression enhances visibility, evokes dialogue, and deepens resistance and activism within and between communities. I explore art of Palestinian feminists Mona Hatoum, Lina Abo Jaradeh, and Samar Hazboun all focussing on encounters with invasion, occupation, and colonization. Mona Hatoum’s Impenetrable from a distance, seems an unearthly levitating cube. Upon closer inspection, a menacing aspect is revealed: it is constructed of hundreds of barbed wire rods dangling from fishing wire. The steel latticework appears to be as delicate as it is threatening, and the barbed wire resembles fences, prisons, camps—designed both to confine and repel. Such images evoke conflict, violence, and state authority, and Hatoum’s work is often discussed in relation to her own experience as a Palestinian exile. The gendered body is often central throughout Hatoum’s artistic practice, using her own body to construct phenomenological situations for the viewer. The histories of Palestinian artists have intersected in unusual and particular ways thus this paper considers how feminist artists investigate and redeploy these intersections through their creative designs. Much of the work is not necessarily treated as unique or as simple provocation, but as rooted in historical memory; a reality that is not necessarily synonymous with the maps and boundaries, constructed by colonizers. Although not specifically self-identified as reproductive justice art activists, I argue that understanding the territories that these artists explore is enhanced using a reproductive justice lens.