Other gazes: representations of gender violence in contemporary Mexican visual culture (2001-2011)

This doctoral thesis presents a critical analysis of visual responses to gender-based violence in contemporary Mexican culture, with the aim of identifying how new forms of narrative can engender ‘ethical visibilización’ of gender-based violence, through instigating ‘otras miradas’, or other ways and modes of spectating and witnessing violence. Central to this investigation are three individual artworks by three Mexican artists, created at different intervals over a particularly violent ten year period (2001-2011). They are as follows: Maryse Sistach’s neorealist auteur film, Perfume de violetas: nadie te ve (2001); Rodrigo Cruz’s multimedia project, Violencia en contra de las mujeres (2006); and Yamina del Real’s tableau photography exhibition, “El cuerpo deshabitado... o En busca del cuerpo perdido” (2011). This thesis subsequently examines how the visual narratives created by these contemporary artists, counter dominant sensationalistic and hyper-violent representations of gender violence, which otherwise exploit victims and commodify violence. Drawing on Ann E Kaplan’s theory of trauma culture, as well as insights from across a broad range of disciplines, it will be argued how each visual artist independently fashions an active audience through their respective processes of ethical or anti-Othering and incitement of intellectual spectatorship. In so doing, they facilitate a re-imagining, and re-presentation of gender violence in Mexican visual culture, which ultimately forms a wider political narrative of ‘ethical visibilización’ of the processes and consequences of gender violence.