Indignadas: María María Acha-Kutscher

Indignadas
Text by Semíramis González

When French revolutionary Olympe de Gouges called women to action in 1791, she was yet to learn that her destiny lied at the guillotine. In fact, in her Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Citizen, she includes the guillotine as a reference to demand that women could also occupy spaces of public exposure. With this speech where Gouges was strictly addressing women : "Woman, wake up, the appeal of the reason is heard throughout the universe; recognize your right," she became a victim of what Celia Amorós called “ruinous alliances”, something that feminists have known all too well throughout history. We defend the causes that represent social progress for all of us, but when it comes to claiming what specifically affects women, our demands take a backseat and our issues are to be resolved later. With this in mind, since 2012, María María Acha-Kutscher's continuous exercise of research, representation, and visibility of women within different manifestations is a true declaration of intent. The artist has created hundreds of drawings that illustrate the strength feminism has gained globally over the last decade. Turning these anonymous people into protagonists who fill the streets in protests such as 15-M, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, or from feminist collectives like Femen, SlutWalk (March of the Whores), #MeToo, or Ni Una Menos, is a feminist act in itself to show the strength of activism around the world.

The work of María María Acha-Kutscher draws a round-trip circuit between the collective experience of the feminist struggle and the individual experience of the artist: if at first, Acha-Kutscher starts from photographs that we find in the media to create portraits digitally, is to then return them to the street in the second part of the work. These images are printed on large canvases and publicly exhibited while also being circulated under creative licenses on social media by activists themselves as a communication tool in their demonstrations and campaigns. Indignadas is an exhibition that puts on the table the importance of feminists in the major social changes of our century, and not only in those related to their agenda; feminism knows that any advance in human rights is beneficial for citizens and also decisive for women. Keeping a feminist perspective in the analysis of our reality is fundamental to construct other stories that take into account the particularities of each and all.

In my opinion, Acha-Kutscher reminds us of our responsibility in this matter, in recognizing, vindicating, in reporting from feminism, from democracy.