#OverMyDeadBody

#OverMyDeadBody 1
Sunlight soap & Perspex
160 cm x 80,5 cm x 8 cm

#OverMyDeadBody 4
Hospital gurney, embroidered
shroud & speaker
87 cm x 197 cm x 85 cm

The #OverMyDeadBody series interrogates the ongoing perception that it is acceptable for a man to punish a woman through violence or death. This series draws attention to the women who have died at their partners’ hands. The processes and media used to honour South African femicide victims are influenced by the artist’s own experiences of intimate partner violence. When a woman, as sufferer or survivor, sees art relating to violence against other women, it provokes an instinctive response: she remembers because she cannot forget. Residual traumatic memory engenders empathy and grievability for these absent yet present women. The artist gathered data and images of femicide victims through various online and offline media. Since green Sunlight soap bars are found in most South African households, the victims’ mouths were carved into the soap. Fifty sculptured mouths are suspended at eye level on Perspex shelves. The passing of the artist’s mother inspired the death shroud embroidered with the victims’ names in gold, which is complimented by a lone singer’s voice that mourns the dead.