!!!TRIGGER WARNING!!! Detailed description of violence, including sexualised violence and medical abuse. Graphic images depict bruises in illustrative watercolour style.
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The series of watercolours highlighting the less-punishable violence (that nevertheless left visible bruises on the body) against women to (NOT ANYMORE) be seen on vernissage in Humboldt University Berlin since 25 November. It is a part of collective project 'Unsichtbar', coordinated by Pussart feminist art collective.
This semi-documentary series represents 6 real stories of women who have been through traumatic experiences that left marks on their bodies. Yet those experiences are either not recognised by society as abuse (due to it being integrated into the medical or institutional system, or because the woman was coerced to give consent to it), or not possible to punish due to certain circumstances. All of these stories happened in recent few years. The paintings were made from photo references that the heroines kept.
This project focuses on the experience of immigrant women from non-Western countries and the way we are treated in Europe. We are the most vulnerable and are not only more likely to be abused than Western women, but also it’s much harder to get out of the abuse circle, as we do not have the support system that is necessary for that. Often we flee from wars or political repressions in our countries of origin and leave everything behind, except for our hopes and dreams - and so we make perfect targets for abuse. Hopes to be helped, hopes to be treated well, to be understood are often taken advantage of. This often stays not taken seriously or ignored even in feminist circles, and after being abused by European men many times in a row we are often victimblamed and gaslit even by other women - those of them who have more privileges. From a privileged position it is hard to understand, that what leads to being stuck in the circle of abuse is not lack of self-love, it is the level of marginalisation and lack of external support, which every of us needs but the Western mainstream psychology is focused on denying it and spreading myths that we can self-love out of everything, which is in reality never going to happen.
Each of the stories represents a different kind of abuse: medical abuse, institutional abuse, coercion to BDSM, emotional abuse, domestic abuse, and police abuse. Names of the heroines are changed for privacy protection.
Story 1 - Uta
The story of Uta is about medical abuse - either incompetence or simply neglect of doctors led to her pain worsening and to danger of permanent damage to her health. Uta has protrusions in her lower back that cause a lot of pain and some mobility limitations, and here in Germany by an official doctor, an orthopaedic specialist, she was prescribed cupping therapy. Cupping therapy has already been proven to be pseudo-scientific since long, and moreover, it proved to be potentially dangerous for people with cardiovascular problems. And still, even in our times, it keeps being prescribed to women with chronic pain officially as physiotherapy paid by government insurance.
Uta: “A male physician did it, he didn’t ask if I have any contraindications, any problems with my heart or whatever. He just told me it would be good for me. It was very painful, and it kept hurting for a month after, I could not lay on my back at all, and it was very hard to fall asleep. All it did was distract me from the pain I already had, with a different kind of pain. But it didn’t help with my problem, the initial pain was still there. I have had this since I was a teenager, I fell on my back once. The only real way to treat these protrusions is to find the right exercises for you and do them regularly, all the rest is quackery, really. However, it took me many years to find a good therapist who showed me the right exercises for my condition. I work in life science now and I know how bad is the situation in medicine for women. Almost all research is done for men, female complaints are frequently dismissed or we are prescribed pseudo-scientific stuff like this. The female body is just too much of a problem for them.”
Accessibility text: The painting shows a Turkic woman sitting on her knees from the back, her head turned away, she is wearing brown panties and sits on blue satin bedding. All over her back, there are red bruises and skin breaks. There is a yellow and a purple pillow on the background.
Story 2 - Ino
Ino’s story is about domestic abuse during lockdown. In 2020 lockdowns all over the world led to the rise of domestic violence. Women were isolated together with their abusers, conflicts at home became more intense and getting help became much harder, immediate separation - was almost impossible in some circumstances. Abuse becomes much easier to hide when a couple is isolated. The goal of lockdown was to ensure safety for all people, but there were people whom it locked in a non-safe environment and deprived of external help. I have an impression that it was not thought of well when ordering lockdowns and the system of support for women who might get abused by partners at home during this time was not prepared.
Ino: “My life turned upside down after getting married. His parents didn’t like me and they expected me to do all the house chores even tho I had a job too, they kept showing their disappointment to my ex-husband, that I was not capable and not good enough to keep them happy. My ex used to get frustrated and hit me when he could not control me. He hit me in my head too many times but bruises are not visible there. It was the year 2020, there was a strict lockdown and it was extremely hard to get any help from any institutions. I am separated now - I survived the hard time and moved out as soon as it became possible”.
Accessibility text: the painting shows a South Asian woman, we can only see her hip and foot from above. There are red and purple bruises on the hips, like lines. She is sitting on a blue sofa and there is a white tile floor. Her clothes are pink and blue with colourful patterns.
Story 3 - Eli
Eli’s story features abuse in a psychiatric institution. It happened in Poland - in the European Union. She came there temporarily, due to a complicated situation in her country of origin, but after getting assaulted at a couchsurfing she had a crisis and had nowhere else to go but to a mental hospital - Nowowiejski Hospital took her in. She was in a psychotic state and she threw her thermos in the window - but it was not broken and no one was hurt - there were no people nearby. But for that, she was punished in a way not proportional to what she did. 5 male orderlies came and put much more physical force than necessary. Such things are still very common in psychiatric institutions, and mental health stigma works against patients, especially female. Psychical force is not the only way to punish a patient that is used commonly - not giving painkillers if a patient of psychiatry has physical pain is also still a thing. If you have a mental diagnosis in addition to physical pain, it’s very hard to get any treatment for the physical one. If you have been assaulted and you have a mental diagnosis you are very unlikely to be believed - even though statistically people with mental illness are becoming the target of violence the most often.
Eli: “I remember my cry - I screamed like a beast, my throat was all done. They looked at it and pressed harder and harder wherever they felt movement, on the wreaths around the neck. they lifted me by my twisted arms - I don’t know if anyone saw me at that moment when my hospital gown was pulled up so that everyone could see my breasts - I felt it only at the moment when, after closing seven belts on me, one pulled my clothes down. They smiled, they pushed me, they hit me on the knees, they mocked me when I was out of breath, they pressed on my Adam's apple so that I didn't swear, I really couldn't do it when my throat constricted. Other patients have seen it, but they all were too frightened to speak up against it. After I got a bit better I wrote to Polish human rights organisations and patient rights institutions, my friends wrote to several institutions, but it's impossible to prove anything - if you have a psychotic mental illness no one simply believes you, or they think it justifies violence, that this was necessary. But we are also people.”
Accessibility text: this painting shows a woman with light skin and pink hair looking at herself in a mirror and taking a photo of herself with her smartphone. We can see her face from the side. She is wearing a pink towel around her torso. Her elbow is bent and she holds her arm a bit up so that we can see a big bruise on it. There are also smaller bruises on her temple, on her elbow and on her side. There are white and green tiles on the walls around and a hook where the towel was hung.
Story 4 - Nik
Nik’s story is about coercion to BDSM. Consent is a complex phenomenon. Many men do not comprehend it in all its nuances and take it as easy as “yes means yes”, without considering the context. True consent not only must be ongoing but also informed, as the point of consent is to ensure that the party who has less privilege is not harmed. And especially important information is when it comes to BDSM practices, as those can be dangerous. Most of the doms are cis-hetero men, who are craving power but are not ready to take responsibility that comes with it and do not stick to any ethical principles. For them, the only important thing is to find someone who will formally agree to be beaten up, no matter the consequences for this person. Commonly, the consent for hardcore practices is coerced from women who are not well connected to reality due to neurodivergence, mental health or being an immigrant and simply not knowing the Western culture. And the power imbalance is taken advantage of. Often lies and manipulations make us consent to things, to which we normally wouldn't - if we knew the real situation and if we were mentally OK. This is often done by famous men and men who are in feminist communities, as their privilege makes it hard for the woman to be heard and believed.
Nik: It was a known Swiss artist (name to be outed a bit later) and a pretend-to-be disability rights activist. We met before, and on the 1st date there were no problems, everything was consensual and careful and no harm was done. This time, though, I felt intimidated, as he seemed mad, he was not up to what I really wanted (to just cuddle in a park) and I gave in. He started with hardcore right away, without asking me if I was up for it today, just assuming, and he went too far with the spanking. Even though I didn’t quite feel pain at that moment because of the mental state I was in (he was aware I was in a mental crisis - I told him right away), there were bruises and I didn’t receive any aftercare (he said he didn’t have time for that) and it was hurting afterwards.
The worst, though, was that only after that I learned he was in a monogamous relationship. He told me those relationships were polyamorous and didn't inform me it changed in a few weeks between our dates. I wouldn’t have gotten involved at all if I knew. I had severe Stockholm syndrome after, so I was saying it was fine - it’s a defensive mechanism when such traumas happen, and only a year later I started seeing it for what it was. I still have nightmares and I am on lots of medications. Nothing like that ever happened to me back where I’m from - I wasn’t an easy prey. Here I just don’t know the culture.
Accessibility text: In this painting, a woman with pale skin and brown hair is making eye contact and holding her blue shirt up. There is a bruise on her left breast (both sides) and a smaller one on the right breast (only the inner part). The background is satin green.
Story 5 - Ava
Ava’s story is about emotional violence - gaslighting. Her ex was claiming she had a personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder is a highly contested diagnosis, which is given mostly to women, especially queer and immigrant women, and prevalently to survivors of violence. So we are blamed for our reactions to things so horrible they should never have happened, and the responsibility is shifted to us from the abusers. It is used to control women and to police our emotions, especially anger, which for women is considered socially unacceptable, while for men it’s totally fine, it is a part of the masculinity standard. The concept of personality disorders is beneficial for patriarchal society.
Ava: ”I still remember the moment he said: “I know what’s wrong with you. You have borderline.” From then on, he pushed the idea that I had a mental disorder. Every action, goal, or desire I had was twisted to fit this diagnosis. I do struggle with anxiety and overthinking, but his constant pressure intensified it. I began to question my reality and sanity, barely able to function. He isolated me from supportive people. His control and accusations led me to act in extreme ways, mimicking the very symptoms he accused me of having. Eventually, under his threats, I went to rehab, but even there I was advised to reconsider my relationship. Yet, my insecurity made me believe he was right.
At 8 months pregnant, after an extreme fight where he again accused me of being mentally ill, I hit him, and he retaliated, leaving me with a bruise on the face. But it was a small thing in comparison to the emotional and financial abuse.
After I finally left this relationship, the BPD diagnosis was reversed. However, he continues to spread rumours under the guise of protecting our child. While officials see through this, the stigma remains, with other parents judging and gossiping. This abuse is often unseen and misunderstood. It nearly broke me, but the desire for my child not to see me as the person he painted me to be gave me the strength to break free and rebuild my life.”
Accessibility text: It’s a portrait of a woman of colour with red, brown and black locks and wearing shiny glasses. She has a bruise on the side of her lower jaw, and the perspective is a bit from below. Her clothes are green and the background is light yellow.
Story 6 - Mar
The story of Mar is about police abuse. This is the only work that I made from memory, as I didn’t have the photo reference in front of my eyes so it might be not as exact as the rest. But I’ve seen this photo, and I know that the heroine received this bruise on a demonstration pro ceasefire in Gaza - police grabbed her with force. As I come from a country where police brutally persecute peaceful demonstrations where opinions that are different from the official position of the government are expressed, and where freedom of speech is practically absent, I can not unsee something like this. While it affects all the activists, the power imbalance in the case of female activists is especially obvious. Often women come to demonstrations simply to support their sisters in other countries who do not have access to fulfilling basic needs, and who are denied basic human rights. It’s common, unfortunately, that police protects the privilege, not vulnerable people.
Accessibility text: It’s a blurry watercolour that shows a female hand in magenta colour. She is holding her hand in a fist but not too tight, more like there is something she softly holds in her palm. There is a purple bruise around her wrist. She is wearing a green and white bracelet. The background is dark blue.