Fire; Butterfly

by Jennifer Cabral

“I represent self-protection and resilience mechanisms that women in my family used for their survival when dealing with physical imbalances and mental disorders that gradually affected their bodies. Through interventions I insert a constant tension into my family’s photographic archive to represent the gap in emotional references in my matrilineal heritage. To the cover-up of female health issues, and the taboos linked to mental disorders of females in my family is added the geopolitical context in which their bodies were inserted. The multiple family migrations between the United States and Brazil were not translatable experiences, leaving the ancestral female bodies permeable to political ideologies, social rhetoric and religious beliefs. I demarcate moments in which international policies, social strategies and cultural indoctrination permeate women in my lineage, causing them to lose possession of their own bodies.”