Hysteria
hysteria
Ideal woman, 5′ 46”, 2016
Coping with hysteria, 6′ 27”, 2017
Hysteria
The ‘Hysteria’ project consists of drawings, two videos and an installation composed of two chastity belts. The project deals with the topic of female subjectivity, through the social prism of female status, then and now, as well as violence against women throughout history. In this context, hysteria, as a female disease of the 19th century, is taken as a symbol of constrained female freedom and sexuality. Hysterical women often lost sight, hearing or the ability to speak. The female victim is symbolically depicted with a cap over her head, where her eyes are glued and her mouth sewn – she remains blind, deaf and silent.In every culture, female have always been the subject of prohibitions, special attention and manipulation, regardless of how it was integrated into the culture. This also means that it has never been and could not be fully clarified. The artist, given her gender, focuses on women’s identity, corporeality and sexuality, viewed from different aspects: moral, social and gender, which is almost always related to the political[1], to the last, hidden secret place – female sexuality. The absence, not only of consideration of this issue, but also of the speech about it, is completely conditioned by the culture, which has shown here, its violent and sadistic face, during the centuries of “civilization”. The reason for this aggression can be found in the very female performativity, the way a woman appears, presenting herself, thus producing an effect – specifically on men, such that they perceive her as wild, unrestrained, devilish, that feminine energy, which must be locked.
Milica Stojaković
[1] Each of the works is an ironic allusion to a certain trend of the modern world, a critique that only underlines, not condemning or supporting “eye-popping” phenomena; unmasking was achieved precisely by emphasizing it – placing it within the framework of an artworkt. To that extent, all the works on this topic are politically engaged, without losing their aesthetic value or the freshness of the topic.
