23/06/15
Patricia Cronin: Shrine for Girls
Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects
Chiesa di San Gallo, Venice
9 May – 22 November 2015
Gang rape and lynching; kidnap;
forced labour: throughout history, women and girls have been subjected to
terrible violence and repression around the world. More shockingly, in many
places, it still goes on today. In her site-specific installation Shrine for
Girls, New York-based artist Patricia Cronin (b1963) commemorates three such
cases: the rape, murder and hanging from trees of three girls in India in June 2014
(the “mango tree rape case”); the kidnapping of 276 female students by the jihadist
militants of Boko Haram in Nigeria in April 2014; and the many young women
pushed into forced labour in the Magdalene asylums and laundries in Europe and
North America from the late-18th century to as recently as 1996. These are
represented respectively by piles of saris, hijabs and grey aprons, one on each
of the three stone altars in Chiesa di San Gallo, Venice’s smallest church, now
deconsecrated and serving as a cultural space.
Three shrines, each accompanied by
a framed photograph, offering space for reflection, contemplation and
remembrance; space for learning lessons; space for lamenting wrongs done and
recalling these – and many other – young girls, whom Cronin considers to be
secular or gender martyrs, since, unlike religious martyrs, they receive no
otherworldly triumph.
To watch this interview, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/patricia-cronin-shrine-for-girls-venice-biennale-video-interview