The Jezebel Project Print

What is The Jezebel Project? “By manipulation and seduction, she misled the saints of God into sins of idolatry and sexual immorality…” Revelations 2:20, The New Testament In November 2014, the first of a rash of sexual assaults against women occurred at the Githurai Ruaraka Matatu Stage in Nairobi, Kenya. The attack involved a group of men forcibly stripping a woman. The attackers claimed that the woman was dressed too provocatively. (This is not the first incident of stripping attacks, which have occurred throughout East and South Africa since the 1970s). Onlookers to the event took video images on their phones that soon went viral worldwide, creating a YouTube sensation with more than 14 million viewers of the video and subsequent videos. The incident was brought before the courts, and though the offenders were charged with crimes, charges were dropped with great haste. The voices of the young women of Kenya were drowned out by hype, sensationalism and media titillation. Courts insisted that videographers would receive the death penalty, an exponentially harsher sentence than the molesters. I was driven to find out exactly what the young women of Kenya were feeling and thinking. My studio assistant, an architecture student at Kenyatta University, facilitated three days of interviews and engagement with her classmates. The experience was rich and rewarding. The Jezebel Project attempts to give young women a voice outside of the male gaze, in an environment that feels safe for them. Whether sexually liberated, authentically spiritual, deeply observant, culturally mindful or radical and activated, these 36 women students shared a generosity of spirit and exchanged viewpoints with each other, and with this artist, through dialog, art making, and self-discovery. I drew a silhouette of each woman with a cast shadow from a spotlight. I then met with groups of three students at a time, asking questions designed to encourage introspection, cultural examination, thought and reaction. No student was unfamiliar with the incident, and many had given it deep thought. Some responded cautiously and were guarded. Others felt very rebellious. Some others felt a need to find the “right” answer to my questions, and I strove to encourage independent thought by giving unexpected and occasionally provocative responses to their answers. I was particularly mindful of the “white gaze” while exploring the opinions and beliefs around this kind of sex-and-violence issue with young Kenyan women. Growing up in the US in the 1980s, I had the privilege of the sexual revolution at my back, and the potential for greater equality at my front. Coming of age, I was influenced by pro-sex feminism, Madonna, and Annie Sprinkle, the Sexy Dressing of Duncan Kennedy and the hope for safe, consensual, fun sex between partners. The Kenyan cultural dialogs are diffuse and run the spectrum between fundamentalist Islamic faith, deeply conservative Christian beliefs, privacy, rebellious and liberal activism, misogyny and traditional tribal and family behavior codes. The men in the planning & architecture program were also eager to share their viewpoints, so I offered them the same opportunity to meet in groups of three men at a time. Their opinions and insights are also revealed in the 36 minute mp3 recording. By making each woman’s image, with that woman, I made the conversation individual and personal. By creating rules around the image-making (2 possible color choices, same size, same pose, same media, no features clearly expressed) I made each woman part of a whole, but the attitudes and the profiles are individual. I chose encaustic as a medium for a few reasons. I wanted to collage news media and literary text under each woman, some very visible and some very obscured, depending on my feeling for the person and the experience we shared. I was able to use coarse, local Kenyan beeswax heated and mixed with Damar resin. I strained the buggy, gritty wax with a tea strainer found at the Nakumatt, a local supermarket. This wax/resin both encases the image in a kind of bug-like amber, and obscures the image, and creates permanence, and cloaks each student in an organic Kenyan substance, like each person wears a kind of cloak of her own cultural heritage. Tribalism, “new” Christianity and Islamic fundamentalism are all part of this cast. Listen, look and experience The Jezebel Project. I am keen to know your responses and reactions.

Print:Giclee on Photo Paper

Size:8 W x 10 H x 0.1 D in

Size with Frame:13.25 W x 15.25 H x 1.2 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.