art.wikisort.org - Sculpture

The Women Who Fight Roundabout (Spanish: Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan)[4] is an antimonumenta dedicated to the victims of femicide in Mexico. The guerrilla sculpture depicts a purple woman holding her arm raised. It was installed on the afternoon of 25 September 2021 by a group of feminists, who intervened the empty plinth where a statue of Christopher Columbus had previously been. The site, a roundabout on Paseo de la Reforma Avenue in Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City, was also symbolically renamed the Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan.

Women Who Fight Roundabout

Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan
The roundabout a few hours after the sculpture was installed
Location
Coordinates	19°25′59″N 99°09′17″W
Location	Mexico City, Mexico
Designer	Antimonumenta Vivas Nos Queremos[1]
Type	Antimonumenta
Material	Steel (formerly wood)[2]
Height	2.3 m (7 ft 7 in)[2] (formerly 1.9 m [6 ft 3 in][3])
Opening date	25 September 2021; 13 months ago (2021-09-25)
Dedicated to	Women

The idea of the main sculpture came about after it was announced that the monument to Columbus would be replaced altogether with a project made by a non-indigenous male artist, who would have been in charge of sculpting an Olmec colossal head to honor indigenous women. Feminists objected to the proposal and a few days later they placed their own design on the pedestal. Originally, the sculpture was not intended to be permanent but to call for justice for the recurrent acts of violence against women in Mexico. Since its installation, feminists have organized events at the roundabout and have replaced the original woodwork with a steel one. The city government, on the other hand, has commented that it is seeking to officially replace the Columbus monument with a replica of The Young Woman of Amajac, a Huastec sculpture, and thus relocate the Women Who Fight anti-monument to another place.

Background

The statue of Christopher Columbus in Paseo de la Reforma was removed on 10 October 2020 prior to an attempted demonstration to topple it two days later—on Columbus Day.[5] According to the government of the city, it was removed as part of a series of restorations performed by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).[6] Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said public debates would be held in 2021 to determine the future of the monument.[7] However, these were not conducted[4] and the government of the city decided to replace the statue of Columbus with Tlalli, a large female head statue by Pedro Reyes who was inspired by the male Olmec colossal heads and his intention was to honor 500 years of the resistance of Mexican indigenous women.[8] The city government explained that the removal occurred after receiving 5,000 signatures from indigenous women who asked to "decolonize Paseo de la Reforma".[9]

Tlalli sparked several controversies, including the selection of Reyes, a mestizo male, to represent Mexican indigenous women.[5][10] Because of the controversies, Sheinbaum postponed the installation and commented that a committee would take care of the situation.[5]

History and description

During the afternoon of 25 September 2021, a group of feminists crossed the protective fences of the monument and installed a wooden[2] antimonumenta depicting a 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in) tall purple woman with her fist raised.[11][12] Additionally, they painted the names of murdered and disappeared women on the protective fences, like that of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz.[13] Some names include those of living women who, they say, have resisted injustices.[13]

The installers referred to the roundabout as the Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan (Spanish for Roundabout of Women Who Fight). They said that the authorities had tried to decide on a new sculpture but that their selection was counterproductive. They asked for the creation of an artistic committee that included indigenous female members to select a replacement under consensus. The feminists added that they did not want to impose their choice of a statue saying, "You decide the figure, we have renamed the roundabout".[4] They further explained that their figure was created "to honor the 'invisible' Afro-Mexican and indigenous women that have had to defend their lands, education, right to live, as well as the women who were erased from history, the Zapatistas, and the female human rights defenders".[4] The names were covered in white paint by the city government within 12 hours. The next day a group of feminists returned and painted the names again, and added, "You will not erase us".[14] During an abortion rights demonstration on 3 October 2021, the names were restored after having been covered again during the week.[15][16]

On 25 November 2021, the date commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, feminists installed complaints clotheslines where they clothespinned the names of public officials and of institutions that they considered had not followed up on their complaints or had ignored or minimized them.[17] They also sang a protest song there.[18] The next day, male police officers broke the clotheslines and tried to remove the protective fences with the names of the females; when they saw that groups of women were filming them, they repositioned them.[19] On 31 October, a Day of the Dead altar was placed on the main path of the roundabout, where feminists wrote "México Feminicida" (Mexico Femicidal). They also placed cempasúchil flowers and papel picado with the phrase "Fue el estado" (It was the state) cut into them.[20]

Feminists replaced the original artwork on 5 March 2022 with a steel monument that is 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) tall as a preparation for the International Women's Day demonstrations on the following 8 March.[2] Also, it was symbolically installed the Garden of Memory (Jardín de la Memoria) where another clothesline with 300 complaints was set up and whose goal is "to bear the names of historical women, feminists, militants of 1968 and 1971, guerrilla fighters, searchers and trackers, mothers who fight for justice, survivors of femicidal violence, women defenders of territories and water, Afro-Mexican women, indigenous women, teachers, Zapatista women, women of the National Indigenous Congress, human rights defenders and journalists. Women who teach us every day with their struggles, that dignity has to be customary".[21][22]

On 24 July 2022, human rights groups symbolically renamed the Glorieta de Colón and Hamburgo stations of the Mexico City Metrobús as "Glorieta de las Mujeres Que Luchan" and "Glorieta de las y los Desaparecidos", respectively. The signage maintained the style used by the system and the pictograms of the stations were replaced by their protest symbols. The actions are part of the symbolic renaming of Paseo de la Reforma to the Ruta de la Memoria (Route of Memory), in reference to the various anti-monument memorials located on the avenue.[23] On the first anniversary of its installation, various collectives organized several events at the roundabout, such as the installation of a pink cross and photographs of missing and murdered persons, as well as a dance and song performance. The collectives reiterated their position regarding its intended relocation, adding that the place "not only has to do with the issue of femicide and disappearance but the various struggles that women have in the country, namely, the indigenous mothers, the struggle for the defense of land [or] water".[24]

Planned removal

On 12 October 2021, the government of the city announced that a replica of The Young Woman of Amajac will replace the monument to Columbus.[25] Three days later, feminist groups urged the authorities to not remove the piece unless the roundabout is formally renamed the Women Who Fight Roundabout. They also criticized that the artwork that will replace it is believed to have been a young elite woman or a ruler.[26] The mother of a murdered teenager said that any alteration would be "an act of direct aggression to the demands of justice".[18]

By June 2022, Sheinbaum mentioned that the replica of The Young Woman of Amajac was almost complete and that she was in talks with feminist collectives to reach an agreement on the relocation of the main sculpture.[27] Feminist groups have said such talks have not taken place, that the government only wants to fulfill a political agenda and that "the state wants to hide the fact that 11 to 13 women are murdered each day [and] that more than 30 people disappear each day".[28]

See also

• 2021 in art
• Antimonumenta (Mexico City), another work in the city.
• Feminist art

References

Further reading

• Ferrucci, Verónika (29 September 2021). "La Anti Monumenta, acción artística y narrativa de las mujeres que luchan" [The Anti Monumenta, artistic action and narrative of the women who fight]. Desinformémonos.org (in Spanish).

External links

• Media related to Glorieta a las mujeres que luchan at Wikimedia Commons

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