Creative Dissent: A Multidisciplinary Study of the Activist Art of Mexican Women in the Context of Gender Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Abstract

In response to the recent gender violence along the U.S. ? Mexico Border, the women of the surrounding communities have campaigned for an end to the violence. Over the course of the last decade, these protests have developed into a strong feminist movement that has spread throughout Mexico. Without a prominent voice in the legal or political systems, women have attempted to draw attention to dire social conditions in various alternative ways. One of the most visible is though art work. Artists have been instrumental as activists in groups that unite women for social reform. In the summer of 2005, I will travel to Mexico City and Ciudad Ju?rez to study how art can be used to create social change in the lives of women throughout Mexico. Through a series of interviews with female artists, specifically from the feminist art collective MujerArte, I will explore personal expression through art as an alternative to mainstream and commercial media. I will study the ways in which the art and the activist work and artwork of the collective subvert oppressive ideologies and iconographies.