Patricia Cronin, Shrine for Girls, Venice, Saris and Photograph, 2015, La Biennale di Venezia – 56th International Art Exhibition. Violence against girls and women. Photo: Mark Blower

ART REVIEW: New York artist Patricia Cronin highlights violence against girls and women in her new art installation at the Venice Biennale. Her shrines and altars to girls stress the need to end violence against girls and women.

BY KAZEEM ADELEKE

VENICE, ITALY— When Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani girl, was shot in the head three times by the Taliban on October 9, 2012, she became the new face of violence against girls and women across the globe. Her only crime was advocating for young girls in Pakistan to have access to an education that would help them do better in this patriarchal society.

The increase in war, terrorism, religious fanaticism, and gender intolerance across the globe has made girls and women even more vulnerable to atrocities in the hands of unscrupulous zealots who hide behind religion to commit dastardly acts against innocent souls. Women are now victims of horrific violence, oppression, subjugation, and unthinkable repression.

Physical Violence Against Women

Terrorist organizations are at the core of the violence against women. For many terrorist organizations, women are mere puns to be sacrificed in order to assert their own authority. They use rape and dehumanization to force their victims into submission. Some even sell the young girls they capture into slavery, where they are forced into early marriages and a painful life of subjugation and maltreatment. Those who protest their maltreatment are killed.

From ISIS to Hezbollah and Boko Haram, examples of cruelty against girls abound. Recently, Boko Haram, an Islamist group in Northern Nigeria, kidnapped 279 girls from their schools and homes. The shocking experience set the world on edge, and leaders across the globe uniformly condemned the kidnapping and asked the terror group to return the girls to their parents. Sadly, their clamoring fell on deaf ears, and up to now, no one knows where the girls are. When a representative of the terror group was asked to return the girls, his response was, “They have been sold.” So, despite the cries of “Bring Back Our Girls” that reverberated across the world, the girls remain in the custody of the terror group.

The horrifying experiences of girls and women across the globe inspired Shrine for Girls, a thought-provoking installation at the 56th Venice Biennale. The exhibition, featuring works by New York-based conceptual artist Patricia Cronin, is inside the exquisite sixteenth-century Church of San Gallo, where Bill Viola showed in 2007.

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Shrine for Girls serves as a reminder that the world continues to be a violent place for girls and women. It is a continuation of Cronin’s advocacy to bring attention to the plight of women and seek recourse for them. For over two decades, the critically acclaimed artist has created compelling works, many with social justice themes focusing on gender. Many of Cronin’s installations also interrogate issues of racial equity and gender parity in historical narratives.  Her works have appeared in shows in museums around the world.

Shrine for Girls features several shrines paying homage to girls and women who have been victims of violence. To create the works, Cronin gathered hundreds of girls’ clothes from around the world, which are then arranged on three stone altars to serve as relics to these young martyrs.

Sexual Violence Against Girls

Each altar addresses specific violence against girls and women around the world. Collectively, the altars are reminders of unfulfilled dreams, unrealized potential, and hopelessness in the face of unfathomable human cruelty. They also emphasize that the need to confront prejudice against girls and women anywher in the world.

Each altar addresses specific violence against girls and women across the world. Collectively, the altars are reminders of unfulfilled dreams, unrealized potentials, and hopelessness in the face of unfathomable human cruelty.

The central altar borrows from the recent experience of three girls who were victims of gang-rape and murder in India. The girls were left hanging from trees after they had been violated by devious individuals. There was an outcry from across the globe, and people demanded that the perpetrators of the heinous be brought to justice.

The altar consists of a pile of brightly colored saris that girls in India wear daily. The empty saris are reminders of the suffereing of the girls and that more Indian girls and women, in general, continue to lose their lives to rape, violence, and unfathomable cruelty. What is left after all the violence is a pile of saris that bears the memory of unfulfilled ambitions.

On the left side of the central altar is another altar consisting of a pile of hijabs. This altar references the recent kidnapping of innocent schoolgirls by Boko Haram, a terror group in Nigeria. The group abhors the education of girls and women. The group actualizes its brutality by kidnapping, oppressing, subjugating, and selling girls and women into slavery for financial benefits. Despite international outrage and a viral campaign on social media with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls, the Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram are still missing.

Altars to Girls and Women

The third altar pays homage to girls and women who were subjects of forced labor. The altar is a pile of aprons and uniforms, symbolizing what girls at the Magdalene Asylum and Laundries wore while working in these sweatshops. Magdalene Asylum and Laundries were forced labor institutions for young women without options in Europe and America as recently as 1996. They initially belonged to Protestant and later Roman Catholic institutions.

Giving credence to the altars are photographs of each of the three tragic events that inspired the installation. In addition to historical relevance and context, the photographs reveal the humanity of the girls who were victims of vicious atrocities. For the artist and viewers, the hope is that the photographs will engender a new and reflective dialogue about gender, memory, and justice.

Shrine for Girls is an important exhibition as it brings deeper attention to violence against girls and women across the globe. Although the United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, women and girls continue to be the subject of unfathomable violence around the world. In addition to being the most vulnerable, girls and women are also often the subjects of cruelty, oppression, repression, and enforced ignorance.

Ending Violence Against Girls

Patricia Cronin’s altars memorialize girls and women who have suffered various types of violence. More importantly, they highlight how gender-based violence has become rampant around the world. From physical violence to sexual violence and psychological violence, Cronin illuminates the experiences of the girls and women memorialized in her installation.

Cronin’s Shrine for Girls is definitely a clarion call that ending violence against girls and women must become a priority. Her altars are reminders that preventing or ending violence against girls and women will bring value to their existence.

Cronin’s Shrine for Girls is a clarion call that ending violence against girls and women must become a priority

Shrine for Girls is an opportunity to reflect on the plight of girls and women across the globe. It was curated by Ludovico Pratesi.  The shrines pay homage to the girls and women who have suffered various forms of violence. Furthermore, they are reminders that many of these women are not archiving their ambitions. The installations help viewers understand that violence against girls and women is at an all-time high and we must all continue to raise awareness about their plight around the world.

The art project by Patricia Cronin at the Venice Biennale remembers violence against girls and women across the globe at the altar.

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