EMPU Exhibition
SHIT
In this Work, during the EMPU exhibition at Bentara Budaya Yogayakarta, Bibiana invites the audience to walk and step on the letters that spell the words SHIT and TAHI scattered on the floor of the exhibition space. Through this activity, visitors can experience: deliberate act of stepping on (act of mistreating a woman), feelings of not wanting to be trampled or to trample, and physically see the result of verbal and emotional abuse – broken letters (the resulting fragile women).
The woman who has constantly experienced verbal and emotional abuse will eventually feel like the spelled letters/words. The woman will lose her confidence if she continues to experience this abuse, and eventually become crushed and vulnerable and lose her dignity even though a woman is a strong figure by nature.
ASSHOLE
In this artwork, Bibiana picked only a word : ASSHOLE. This is a very derogatory term to address women. Most verbal abuse occurs in private. With this work, Bibiana invites the audience to experience this verbal abuse in private too. During the EMPU exhibition at Bentara Budaya Yogyakarta, by scanning the barcode, the audience can access the video art. When it is continuously played, the audience can feel how uncomfortable it is to be treated like that.
This work addresses ABUSE experienced by women – not physical abuse but verbal abuse which often turns to emotional abuse. This kind of mistreatment is often initially not visible because the verbal abuse that degrades the women do not leave any physical scars.
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