UNCENSORED Exhibition: A Gimp’s POV
UNCENSORED exhibition, part of the three-day UNCENSORED festival, unveils the importance of allowing artists to present their work fiercely and proudly in the face of censorship or societal restraint. UNCENSORED exhibition’s curator, Aleksandra Wojt, exposed the work of artists and performers that challenge and question the role of art, pornography, politics and all aspects in between. The result is an exhibition that redefines the way we look at the contemporary discourse of sexuality, gender, porn and activism.
Restrained. Ropes fix my ankles and bust to the chair. Concealed. My features hidden behind the black layers of the gimp suit. Censored. I reveal only that which society (dis)likes: my lips, my nipples, my vagina. Framed against the walls of the UNCENSORED exhibition, I situate myself as a living work of art amongst sculptures, video installations and performers. I cannot speak. I cannot move. I cannot react. My only means of communication for the next 11 hours is through a screen — now my only world. A world of observations and perceptions — a world only I inhabit an through which I contact the exterior realm of gallery visitors, artists and their works through my projected words.
/// censored. do we own our own bodies forced / coerced / stuck am I in control of this OR NOT ///// What is this body who is controlling it / who is fixing their ideals onto my pressed skin / you? over there in the white shirt?
Communication with the outer world is problematic when you are a gimp. They — they look back at the printed words projected on the screen. They — they pretend I am not here. Their privileged mode of communication is through spoken words: I am ignored. The passive interaction — a broken homeostasis — is perceivable via the words visitors read and their elusive looks at my covered face and exposed sexual organs.
BOUND : I restrict myself so you don’t have to: I restrict myself so YOU have to. Watch me. Who is looking at the spectacle of skin as it unfolds? Do you gain any pleasure from seeing me lose that which we all like to nonchalantly call ‘freedom’. . . Is this? a form? of ? censorship? Or expression? Can it Is what you see mediated or unbound? determinated or free? Did i decide out of my own will to be the gimp
To be restricted yet free at the same time. An oxymoron. A paradox. A way of being. I observe but do not say. I question but do not ask. I censor yet I am free. Together with the artworks in this space I cannot speak — perhaps I am sub-human, a category you repute below your own: a thing. But things communicate back too, the artwork you stare at is firing back all sorts of signs and messages for you to decode. A bit like the message I am sending out right?
You see yourself exactly through the lens of others. I buy you buy I talk you talk If it’s silent no one speaks I’ve been here stuck to this chair for hours do you think anyone has stopped and spoken to me? no one dares because society told you that if someone is tied to a chair in a gimp mask with her nipples and genitals sticking out then OH OH, alarm bells do not speak to it take a couple of steps in the other direction pretend it’s not there block it out
What is censorship in the age of social media? Back in March, your multiple online personas’ daddy ever-so-quietly made the decision to delete what its platform now defined ‘inappropriate’ content via his favourite new mantra which he chants every morning in a fit of new-age rage: “remove, reduce, inform”. Content did not have to transgress any ‘community guideline’ anymore, it was enough to simply violate the algorithms fictitious idea of decency — female nipple, male nipple, cat nipple: it does not matter anymore. All that matters is to keep it nice and child friendly and state approved obviously xenofobia, misogyny, racism, threats, public displays of violence and bullying included and encouraged.
Your body is minemybodyisyoursisthisevenabodyoristhisapieceofinanimateobject? living / sculpture / changes when you look at me. I change for you. Meld for you. FANTASY state approved. your taxpayer money funds you looking at me me looking at you you thinking about me me thinking that’s you or me and they spray paint it all over your sanitised toilet bowl for you to piss on and lick. tastes yummy just like you. State approved fantasy of uncensored piss flavoured exhibitions, that permeates all holes and corrodes all minds. I will repeat: STATE APPROVED. Real unmitigated uncensored. Uncensored through the censorship censorship of that’s to say us. I mean me. Swallow the societal restraint system like there’s no tomorrrrrrrrow
There is nothing sexier than control. Especially when you’re not in it. Society teaches us all to be subs but says we are doms. We’re not allowed to say we are subs. Just remember: YOU are not a sub. Now chomp down on that pre-packaged life deal and swallow all that sugary sweet stuff. That’s right, well done. Now, all we’re left with is tooth decay and dyspepsia. But no worry — veneers? Designer colostomy bags? We’re still in control baby! But wait. Don’t you all know that being a sub actually means being in control? The master needs the slave to be the master — so who’s in control now? Your meaningless pre-packaged consumption or my increasingly free self-consciousness? Art helps you talk less, think more.
get a rope. perform shibari onto your greatest convictions and tell me ‘yes’ I KNOW these are true. The sky is blue. Mummy and daddy must marry and make someone like me. And now tighten that rope. Are you still so convinced that those truths you held onto and tied yourself to all your life are indeed so TRUE? so real? made out of indelible marker and written all over your face? Tie yourself at least once a day. Get the thought you like the most, the one you are most convinced about and tie it. Make a firm knot around it.
Art and exhibitions like UNCENSORED are needed to untie and tie different thoughts in our heads and make us rethink what we consider normal, appropriate, just, useful, moral and so on. Myself, along with the other artworks in the gallery, might not be able to speak through the usual channels of communication. But that is precisely our strength: to reveal that the world is way more complex and diverse than what we think — that there is more than one way of seeing, communicating, loving, being, feeling… As an uncensored gimp I reveal how I am not the only one who is tied — we all are — and we are all self-censored too — restricted both by our very idea of self and that of others. Throughout my 11 hour long performance only 1 person had the courage to start a conversation with me. We talked about periods, another subject we still have too many unnecessary reservations about — and a topic a lot of people still absurdly have trouble addressing in public…
thank you for being the only human who thought it would be ideal to speak to an object, I gladly accept the objectification i feel like i should change my tampon its been in for hours oh okay. then my uterus can be saved. yes i wanted to ! but this is the last day of the period and its not that aesthetically pleasing no red gush of blood .. it’s more like bits of gooey brown uterus remnants. i mean, i am in an art gallery i wanted the red gush instead my body betrayed me by starting the period 3 days early.
Text by: Gabriella Gasparini | Instagram
Curated by Aleksandra Wojt | Instagram
For UNCENSORED Festival | Instagram
Originally published at http://pornceptual.com on August 14, 2019.
