Lidia is a multidisciplinary artist working across installation, video, photography, performance and activism. Using strong and sometimes disturbing images in combination with extensive research her work aims to produce beautiful images to communicate uncomfortable narrative generally rooted in social injustice and inequality. Lidia believes passionately in the statement that ‘the personal is political’ and that through art it is possible to shape society.
ARTWORK
‘Princess, Angel, Honey, Love, Missus, Bitch, Whore’
POA
Gender stereotypes are socially constructed roles, behaviours, characteristics and activities, that a specific society considers appropriate for women and men.
Gender stereotyping shapes the social structure and the relationship between human beings: they are harmful for both women and men. The attributes of masculinity and femininity are not innate, but learned from early childhood and they have a lifelong impact on every choice of a human being.
Worldwide the majority of societies have defined active and dominant behaviour for men and passive and submissive ones for women. For this reason violence against women is often institutionalised in many countries and communities where the social norms and the legal systems are discriminatory against women and girls and encourage violence.
Girls’ World – It’s Her Fault, 2017
Installation, Mix Media
POA
Girls’ World is an ongoing project composed of a series of photographs of installations. In her installations she uses Barbie dolls: Barbie has been a role model for generations of girls in western society, enacting their future lives and dreams with her. The installations deal with different social and cultural issues which influence girls and women’s lives worldwide. No country in the world is free of misogyny and violence against women and girls, and in some countries this reality is far more evident.
Rape is the most under reported crime worldwide. Even though a significant proportion of boys and men suffer sexual violence, the majority of rape victims are girls and women. Throughout the world there is a sexist blame culture that frequently considers the victims responsible for being raped, because they were in the wrong place, at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothes with the wrong people or attitude. In some countries when victims are not actually killed by their rapist, they are often sentenced to jail, corporal punishment and sometimes even condemned to death from their judicial system. Sometimes they are killed by their own family because of the shame they bring to the family for being raped. In some countries there are laws to force underage girls that are the victims of rape to marry their rapists, therefore legitimising the criminal abuse of young girls. These girls are destined to a life of horror so that their rapists can escape punishment to salvage their own honour. It is estimated around 1 woman in 20 has been raped. Considering the current female population, that is 238 every minute, 4 every second.
