Abstract

MELO, Teresa. What does it feel like to be a fiction?: body, reproduction and abortion from Untitled (Senior Thesis) by Aliza Shvartz. Faces de Eva. Estudos sobre a Mulher [online]. 2023, n.50, pp.101-114.  Epub Feb 21, 2024. ISSN 0874-6885.  https://doi.org/10.34619/kzy8-4mr5.

Abstract: The artistic performance Untitled (Senior Thesis) (2008) by artist Aliza Shvarts, which consisted of recording acts of self-insemination and self-induced abortions, was declared a “fiction” by Yale University and censored for public exhibition. From the concept of gender performativity developed by Judith Butler, I argue that this performance provides considerable reflections not only on the biological and social maintenance of reproductive labour, but also on feminist art as a space to imagine a future in which women are not the ‘object’ of reproduction but the ‘authors’ of their own mapping.

Keywords : abortion; contemporary feminist art; reproductive and sexual rights; gender performativity; performance.

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