Regina José Galindo is a Guatemalan performance artist who brings attention to humanitarian issues through her work with the body. Some of her performances include carving the word perra (bitch) into her leg to fight female oppression, beating herself once for every woman killed in the last year, or walking with a bowl of blood to create a trail of footprints symbolizing the Guatemalan genocide. While her work is often graphic, it is effective and has gained international recognition. In the case of her trail of footprints, titled ¿Quién puede borrar las huellas? (Who Can Erase the Footprints?), it actually helped to bring former dictator Ríos Montt to trial for his crimes against the Mayan people.
Clearly, Galindo’s work sends powerful messages when it is made visible. When it isn’t, however, it doesn’t work quite as well. One of Galindo’s performances, called Extensión, was designed to commemorate femicide victims. In it, she took the hair of six unidentified murdered women from a Guatemalan cemetery and made it into extensions containing the victims’ DNA. Then she and a handful of volunteers wore the hair extensions for a week to symbolically extend the womens’ lives. This performance, though powerful when it first came out, died down quickly as the extensions disappeared from public view. Only a handful of people have studied it and, when I researched it, I was only able to find three scholarly sources that mentioned it at all. So where did these extensions disappear to?
They are quietly housed in the basement of the Davidson College Visual Arts Center (VAC). In the VAC, almost nobody sees them and few realize they exist. This has to change. As we learned in Dr. Wertheimer’s guest lecture, Guatemalan femicide is a real and horrific issue.
I want Davidson to display the extensions in a permanent location. In order to do so effectively, there needs to be contextual information alongside the piece: its story, information on femicide, a link to the video of the original performance (available on YouTube) and Galindo’s website, and any further readings deemed appropriate. The question of whether campus is even an appropriate place to display this is up for debate. After all, Davidson is an American PWI, whereas Galindo and the extensions’ story are Guatemalan. Maybe it would be better to place them elsewhere on permanent loan: somewhere that they’d have more meaning. Regardless, I believe that they need to be displayed, and I urge the college to find a way to do so.
Galindo’s work is powerful. The fact that she chose to bring attention to femicide by extending the lives of its victims is beautiful. It is through showing them love and compassion that she reminds the world that these women were deserving of life––and their murder was wrong. This is much more empowering and healing than focusing on perpetrators. I believe this anti-femicide message is important. But I believe that in order to be effective, the extensions need to be seen and discussed. Because of this, I would request Davidson to address the extensions and their story in a permanent exhibit, or to put them on permanent loan to someone who will.
Further reading: https://hum.rachaeldevecka.com/galindo/
Regina José Galindo es una artista guatemalteca. Sus obras son actuaciones de problemas humanitarios en Guatemala que la artista crea usando el cuerpo. Algunos ejemplos de sus obras son grabando perra en su pierna para simbolizar la opresión femenina, golpeándose una vez para cada mujer asesinada, y caminando con sangre en sus pies hasta el palacio para recordar el genocidio contra las Mayas. Mientras que muchas de sus obras son gráficas, son efectivas. De hecho, ¿Quién puede borrar las huellas? contribuyó al derrocamiento de Ríos Montt por sus crímenes en el genocidio.
Obviamente, el arte de Galindo tiene un mensaje poderoso, pero solamente cuando la gente puede verlo. Una de sus obras, Extensión, fue creado para memorializar las víctimas del feminicidio. Para la obra, ella tomó cabello de seis mujeres asesinadas de un cementerio en Guatemala y creó extensiones. Galindo y algunas voluntarias llevaron las extensiones en su propio cabello por una semana para extender las vidas de las mujeres asesinadas. La obra, mientras que tuve impacto al principio, no es bien conocido. Muy pocos personas han estudiado Extensión, y cuando escribí un ensayo sobre ella para otro clase, descubrí que solamente existen tres papeles que analicen esa obra. ¿Cómo desapareció las extensiones? ¿Dónde están ahora?
Quedan en silencio en el sótano del centro de arte de Davidson. Allí, nadie vea las extensiones, y casi nadie sabe que existen. Ese debe cambiar. Como aprendimos en la lectura de Dr. Wertheimer, el feminicidio guatemalteco es un problema grave.
Quiero que Davidson ponga en un lugar permanente las extensiones. Para hacerlo de una manera efectiva, debe haber información contextual con ellas. Recursos sobre el feminicidio, el enlace de la actuación original (hay una copia en YouTube), la página web de Galindo, y cualquier otro recurso apropiado. Y no voy a argumentar que Davidson es el sitio perfecto para las extensiones. Sé que la mayoría de los estudiantes son estadounidenses blancos y la historia de las extensiones es una historia tal guatemalteca como su artista. Es posible que sería mejor poner las extensiones en préstamo permanente en un lugar donde tendrían más significanza. No obstante, es mi opinión que Davidson debe encontrar un lugar para exhibir las extensiones permanentemente.
Las obras de Galindo son poderosas. Me encanta que ella decidió llamar atención a la causa de feminicidio por extender las vidas de las víctimas en vez de enfocar en los asesinos. Es lindo simplemente decir <<estas mujeres merecían vivir>> para mostrar el horror del feminicidio. Creo que el mensaje es bastante importante pero para ser efectiva, las extensiones y su contexto deben estar visto. Para comunicar el mensaje, Davidson debe ponerlas en un lugar permanente, o encontrar alguien para hacerlo.
I appreciate your insight on this important issue. I was not aware of Regina José Galindo’s work and now wish that I had had the opportunity to study this important work while on Davidson’s campus. You make a great point that I agree with; Davidson should display Galindo’s powerful work more clearly and publicly on campus. Femicide is a very real issue yet one that often gets brushed under the rug, so displaying Galindo’s work publicly and with context can help start this conversation on Davidson’s campus. I took Dr. Maiz-Peña’s class on Latin American Women Writers last semester and feel like a discussion of Galindo’s work would enrich the course material discussions we had in class. We covered difficult issues such as sex trafficking and the emotionally difficult lives of many women in the wake of dictatorships, so I feel like this discussion of femicide and social protest would help further these discussions.
Thank you Rachael for this incredibly powerful overview and introduction to the work of Regina Galindo. Her work is visceral, loud, and demands attention -and it needs to be seen!! I love that you include the suggestion to Davidson College to either display and address her work or release it to be appreciated elsewhere. I think your investigation has a lot of potential to go far as an institutional demand. I know schedules and priorities are all over the place right now, but I would love to see what can come of this discovery. You make a good point, it is graphic material-but Black, Indigenous, and Brown women are experiencing this violence on a daily basis. The least we can do is raise awareness and advocate for their safety and hold the systems in place that turn a blind eye to them accountable.
Rachel, I want to start by first saying what a truly meaningful and impactful post this is. I must admit I am one of those who had no idea who Galindo was or the fact that Davidson even had any of her work. You raise very interesting points that demonstrate the deliberate attention to detail you took. Unfortunately, I cannot say the suppression of her messages comes as a surprise to me, not only through a historical context but also based on histories and events that Davidson may not be willing to share with its associates. I can’t help but draw parallels to the life and work of Frida Kahlo, and how little the documentary we watched in class even mentioned her. I do not know if this injustice is exclusive to prominent Latin American women but it is definitely reinforced in the region. I am forced to think of the life and career Eva Perron could have had in Argentina if there was some semblance of true equality. Although she was beloved by the people and carries a legacy that seemingly will never be forgotten, it is ultimately her husband who help the official positions of power and was in the position to make executive decisions in Argentina, regardless of if the ideas were even his or original.
Rachael, thank you so much for giving insight into such a meaningful and relevant topic. Personally, I did not know about this situation, and I am so glad you had the wherewithal to discuss it. I think that your study of Galindo’s work and your call for action upon the institution is very brave and inspiring. I am glad you used this platform to be able to share that information with us, and I hope you will continue in your efforts to get Galindo’s work displayed in a permanent location. This was without a doubt one of the more striking and meaningful reflection posts I have had the opportunity to read and comment on and I commend you for all of your efforts!
Rachel, this is an incredible reflection and a very insightful call to action. I admit that I had previously heard about Galindo’s work being kept in the VAC, but I never knew its significance or that it was being ‘hidden’. I think this is something you could continue to explore in the next few years if you wanted to. The visibility of black and brown women’s art is so important, and yet institutions continue to silence it. I don’t see a reason why Davidson wouldn’t listen to these demands, especially with all the support I’ve seen in the comments.