ANONYMOUS
WAS A (MIGRANT) WOMAN (ARTIST)
Screen print scarf / C-print on cotton paper
Variable dimensions
Limited editions numbered and signed
2021
WAS A (MIGRANT) WOMAN (ARTIST)
Screen print scarf / C-print on cotton paper
Variable dimensions
Limited editions numbered and signed
2021
It is well known that the former life of migrants is annulled. (…)
Everything that is not objectified and cannot be counted and measured,
everything that continues to live only as thought and memory, disappears. (…)
For this, they created a single rubric, called “background”,
which appears as an appendix in questionnaires, after sex, age and occupation. (…)
Thus, even what is past is no longer safe from the present,
which, by remembering it,
once again consecrates it to oblivion.
_ADORNO, 1951
Everything that is not objectified and cannot be counted and measured,
everything that continues to live only as thought and memory, disappears. (…)
For this, they created a single rubric, called “background”,
which appears as an appendix in questionnaires, after sex, age and occupation. (…)
Thus, even what is past is no longer safe from the present,
which, by remembering it,
once again consecrates it to oblivion.
_ADORNO, 1951
Excerpt “A Montanha como Metáfora: Exclusão Anonimato e Invisibilidade da Mulher Artista Migrante” (LANTYER, 2021):
Anonymous was a woman
_WOOLF, 1029
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_WOOLF, 1029
Derived from Greek, the word “Anonymity” means the condition or attribute of what is anonymous, nameless, signless, hidden (LEXICO, nd). A quick search on online dictionaries offers a set of definitions for the term, such as: not named, not highlighted or devoid of authorship (eg anonymous letter); the one who has no fame, unknown person. These references converge, in general, on the idea of “unidentified”, and they multiply in similar meanings, such as unknown, impersonal, incognito, ignored, obscure. Further on, these meanings are revealed in a list of synonyms related to secrecy and concealment, such as covert, cryptic, enigmatic, disappeared, discreet, concealed masked, hidden, secret (ORIGEM DA PALAVRA, nd). Furthermore, there are meanings directly related to social exclusion, which, curiously, take on pejorative tones, such as john-nom, zé-ninguém, popular, scum and, finally, simply the sense of strange, alien and other (DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS, nd).
However, when we relate the search to gender studies, the results acquire more incisive contours, leading directly to the niche of the feminist debate. No by accident. The association of women’s oppression with the terms “anonymous” and “anonymity” is due to the English writer Virginia Woolf and her essay “A room of one’s own”, published in 1929. The text resulted from two lectures to female students given by the author at Newnham and Girton Women's College, Cambridge University, the previous year. Invited to talk about what women needed to dedicate themselves to writing fiction, Woolf developed her reflections on the historical limitations imposed on those who once aspired to become writers, speaking, therefore, of all women with intellectual and artistic ambitions who were silenced by patriarchy.
(LANTYER, A montanha como metáfora, 2021).
* Anonymous is part of the reseach developed on the exclusion of the female migrant artist in Europe and was exhibited during the public exams and Master Fine Arts / Intermedia thesis defense. Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade do Porto, PT, 2021.
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