On the evening of Friday 30th of November, one day after the official opening of the show, Galleri Majkens was contacted by ABF Stockholm and ordered to take down the whole exhibition with immediate effect.
In a following phone call, Galleri Majkens was informed that they had broken ABF´s rules and lost their trust, while a direct connection with the content and form of the exhibition was specifically denied. Yet, the exhibition was immediately removed from ABFs event calendar without any further negotiations.
While both Galleri Majkens and ABF agreed to the occurence of miscommunication concerning the exact location of the show, and whether to include the staircase or not, ABF persisted on the exhibition itself being perfectly fine.
Still, members of Galleri Majkens board were forced to take down Rossana Mercado-Rojas exhibition on Sunday, December 2nd without being granted a meeting or any possibility to adjust to ABF´s claims. Just before the de-install-process it was discovered that ABF had covered both the abstracted vulva and the uterus Rossana Mercado-Rojas had painted in the staircase as a part of the exhibition design leading visitors down to the gallery space.
Galleri Majkens interprets this specific act as an act of censorship and would like to express their deep disappointment in ABF – who were fully aware of the fact they were hosting a feminist art gallery with an outspoken feminist agenda.
Furthermore, Galleri Majken’s board is distraught over the way this censorship and the cancellation of the exhibition was communicated and carried out.
“Penurias, pick a dick” depicts a shadow painted with organic tint and blood. This is based on my silhouette projected on the fabric. The remains of our body interpreted by others. Our bodies reconfigured as fragile or inviting to violence since we are children. Our bodies in the view of strangers, of family, of the person to trust. Remains without a face. Anger, fear. How should we portray ourselves when walking on a dark street in order to stay safe, how should we handle ourselves not to provoke, how should we draw ourselves when going to the police. How do we become a “proper victim” in front of “authorities”? how our body language can make us look like we were “asking for it”. How do we project ourselves in front of the Protection Institution?
This fabric with silhouette is attached to knitted colourful penises that lay on the floor, fragile and soft. The demanding penises. Penises that want to be respected, feared, touched, taken care of, seen, sucked, loved. Penises the audience was invited to step on.
PATER FAMILIAS
The first installation “Pater Familias” gathers photocopies of documents issued along eight years of the process in Peru for getting sole custody of my child up until today with the ongoing migration process to bring my son to Sweden. The words“father”, “god” and “husband” are repeated in a lot of the documents even when the father is completely absent in these processes. This piece reflects the violence in which institutions force women to go through long evaluations that demand money, time, and emotional waste in order to reinforce the “paterfamilias-figure”, where a family is incomplete without a father, without a husband.
I made portraits of my son with kitchen oil. Portraits of how I remember him when these events occurred. The absence and the remembrance of how I think and feel about my child over the documents that foster his absence. Holy father, father of god.
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Holy father
God father
Holy Father, Jesus Christ. Nailed to the cross
Nailed to the fucking cross
Where is your husband?
Kid, where is your father?
Do you know your father?
Why is your father not here?
All children need a father
The family needs a father
Pater familias, the head of society’s core structure
Father government is an absent abusive parent. Appears every once in a while, drunk and violent. Demands food and sex. Calls you a whore. You fucking slut who wants to go around without taking proper care of the child.
A mother should be next to her child
Eight years of asking favors
Dear judge, could I have my son with me when I travel? No. A kid needs his father.
Dear judge the father has abandoned my son when eight years ago. Why did you ask my kid about his father?
A kid needs a father
Dear judge, could I have my son under my sole custody? No. What if the father overcomes his problems, one day
Dear judge can you put pressure on the father so he can pay some child support? No, we need to understand his precarious state, and you are the only dependant on your parents as a parasite. No problem for you
Ma’m, will you be able to handle all the responsibilities we demand in this school by yourself? We ask for a lot of parent participation.
Without a father, now taking him away from his country…Poor child
Crazy impulsive person. We need to have a lot of psychologic evaluations to see if she can handle this.
Dear Judge: Why do I have to go through so many tests and long processes, there is no opponent here, the other person is just absent.// All kids need a father
Dear judge: The father has spent money and time to get rid of the responsibility.
Dear migration office: I don’t have a husband.
Dear municipality education office person: Why do you think me and my son will “hardly” become members of your fine kommun?
The law system builds an absence, builds up pain, stigmatize children, families.
Dead to the holy father. Dead to god
Daddy government empowers the presence/absence of the father
The absence of my child
A mother should be with her child
Vida Bohemia/Rossanaconda
Finally, the third installation “Vida Bohemia -Rossanaconda”, is a homage to my great-grandmothers who are not that present in my family´s stories since they are remembered to be the impoverished and uneducated past of the family. The past we should be ashamed of in order to adapt and to be accepted in “wealthier” environments.
I take the figure of my grandmother as a turning point for my own family´s history and also for a collective context dealing with the situation of indigenous communities in my country. Which also reflects the general history of how whole cultures were planned to be erased using different argumentation in each case.
The idea of racial and cultural hierarchies stems from the power of colonial storytelling portraying indigenous population as dirty, obscene, uncivilized savages. Stereotypes of ‘uncivilized’ people were at times further framed within an evangelical context, allowing European military forces to present their conquest of ‘savages’ as divinely ordained: a colonial military doctrine.
During 1969, the agrarian reform was implemented in Peru to take the Haciendas from the patrons (Spaniards or Criollos) to give them to the working-force: the indigenous-farmer communities. By doing so, the silenced objectified working-force regained a voice, at least on paper.
During the Fujimori government (1990-2000) around294 000 women were sterilized in Peru. Most of them were Andean women on the grounds that they were uneducated poor women that would bring up more poor to the population. This was Fujimori´s strategy to manifest a progressing country in the path of success.
For Vida Bohemia – Rossanaconda I built a sculpture of my great-grandmother with a metal skeleton as a base, positioned as if it was dancing the Huayno (a folkloric traditional Andean type of music), then I built the organs with materials such as soft fabric, yarn, paper, and plastic. I made the skin with transparent delicate fabric tinted with wax, blood, and hair. Blood of my blood. The sculpture wears a pink skirt that was given to me as a gift from my grandmother and I have taken this skirt to different celebrations around the world. There are four old monitors surrounding the sculpture showing images of women, colleagues, and friends from Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Sweden celebrating in different cities such as Lima, Visviriand Stockholm. The audio of this installation changes from songs by the Andean folk diva Flor Pucarina to distortion- and techno queer noise. On the walls, there is a text-poem that starts with “I’m the savage, the otherness / I´m the savage, embodied complexity / I’m the savage you discover in her own lands / I’m savage you raped and kept as a slave”.
Galleri Majkens presents ’Hysteriska Historiska’ – a solo show by the feminist artist Rossana Mercado-Rojas.
Rossana Mercado-Rojas (1982) is a Peruvian artist, curator and one of the founders of the woman art-collective Hysterix in Peru. Her artistry explores topics such as public space, gender, power structures and art pedagogy. With a BA in Paint from PUCP, in Peru and a MFA in Curatorial Practices at Konstfack in Stockholm, Mercado-Rojas is currently doing Post-Master studies at The Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Stockholm.
The exhibition shows Mercado-Rojas mixed-media installations, which encompasses video, textiles, crafts and painting. These works originates from the artist´s personal experiences of bodies that play a crucial part in her life, considering a political and activist stand on performativity that utilises the body as an art-material and design language. This language opposes cultural images of the female body as “weak”, “different” and “awkward”- which is best described through Hysteria as a concept. When her work visualises patriarchal power structures that have an impact on the artist´s own life, work and practice – as for millions of women, mothers and daughters – they unify the Hysterical with a collective history.
The exhibition´s focus on the Collective will also serve as the official inauguration of Galleri Majkens new formation. A gallery, which, as of now, is run by a feminist board of women from various disciplines in practice and theory – who work together for equality in the art world. As a gallery with no permanent residence ‘Hysteriska Historiska’ will be the first of many temporary exhibitions that Galleri Majkens produce on various locations across Stockholm. Places that belong, highlight, or bring contrasts to the themes of the exhibitions.
Therefor, the given choice for the whereabouts of Rossana Mercado-Rojas solo show was the gallery space at ABF – the Workers Educational Association, which is situated in the house of ABF in Stockholm City. For a brief period in time, the spot will link Galleri Majkens to ABF´s century of collectively working towards popular adult education, which early on also involved women. Mercado-Rojas exhibition will come full circle as the artist includes video works by Paola Torres Núñez del Prado and Ami Kohara, as well as her colleague from Hysterix: Angélica Chávez Cáceres.
Rossanaconda 