‘Great change is possible’: female artists grapple with social and political upheaval

Abraham Lincoln seated in a monumental chair. Thomas Jefferson standing tall surrounded by excerpts from the Declaration of Independence. Andrew Jackson raising his hat as his horse rises on its rear legs.

Washington’s statues tell a heroic story, usually with a white male face. But the newest arrival, while carved from Carrara marble like a classical sculpture, is different. Intra-Venus is a nude self-portrait by Marina Vargas, candidly depicting her body during breast cancer treatment. The Spanish artist, who lost the use of her left arm for a time, shows herself with left arm raised aloft in triumph.

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“This process where I had to be nude and so vulnerable and exposed was itself therapeutic,” says Vargas, 45, whose medical scan was useful for the project. “I decided to use art as a mirror and window. We recognise this raised hand as a revolutionary proud act. It’s anti-monumental. For a woman to show this mastectomy scar is an act of strength. It’s an artwork that shows the strength and resistance of women as an act of power.”

The canon-busting Intra-Venus stands like a sentinel at the entrance to New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024, which opened last week at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA). The exhibition features 28 artists from America and beyond exploring a central question: how has the upheaval of recent years, from the coronavirus pandemic, climate crisis and stark political division, inspired artists?

Their answers – in paintings, sculpture, photography, installation, video and textiles – grapple with gender, displacement and belonging, the natural world, technology and the power of community to challenge the status quo reimagine past, present and alternate realities. It is part of a Women to Watch collaboration between the museum and its global network of outreach committees presented every three years.

Among the works on show, Rajyashri Goody, a member of the Dalit people of the Hindu caste system in India, offers sculptural installations made of ceramic foods to illuminate how deprivation led Dalits to forage resources and invent new recipes.

Nicki Green paints symbols related to queerness on to Jewish ritual objects such as porcelain wash basins and wine chalices, challenging notions of gender in Judaism. Graciela Arias Salazar of Peru portrays the celestial origin story of the Shipibo-Conibo, an Indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon, in brightly coloured scenes painted on 10 machetes, a tool necessary for survival in the jungle.

The potential and perils of technology inevitably loom large. For (Im)possible Baby (2015), a mixed-media installation comprising photography, videos and texts, Ai Hasegawa of Japan analysed the DNA data of a lesbian couple to simulate their potential genetically related children in fictional family photos – a breakfast, a birthday party, a play time.

Along with scientific charts and diagrams, there is a wall of video interviews and social media comments expressing various opinions about the ethics of such reproduction and whether it might create a more – or less – inclusive society. One speech bubble says: “Prejudice towards women who cannot reproduce might disappear.” Another asks: “Could males become unnecessary in the future?”

In Past/Presence/Future (2020) by Mona Cliff/HanukGahNé (Spotted Cloud), a multidisciplinary Indigenous artist, a beaded gas mask reflects on the past, disease, toxic environments, war in the present and a future without limits. The idea came to Cliff when visiting the Cahokia mounds near St Louis, Missouri.

She says via email: “The Cahokia mounds were once inhabited by Indigenous people, a large populated city. As we visited we passed a landfill, just a few miles away, I began to think, this is what we are leaving to our future generations? The inhabitants of Cahokia built this amazing city and this generation leaves a landfill that is higher than the mounds?

“While creating the piece we were in the middle of the pandemic and my thoughts were also of self-protection. I felt this will not be the last time we experience a pandemic. My thoughts were of a future and how a medicine person would adorn themselves in this future. I imagined how traditional knowledge would be carried and how will future generations interpret and apply traditional knowledge.”

Asked if she feels optimistic or pessimistic about the future, Cliff replies: “If I had to lean into a feeling I would say optimistic, as I see in the resilience of my own community we have adapted and continue our traditional knowledge systems with great effort.

“However, I also see the greed and unchecked trajectory of major corporations will be forcing people to become resilient in the face of climate change, as it is the people who live without the resources of the first world who suffer the most from the consequences of climate change. I see that humans can adapt and great change is possible when communities come together to protect each other.”

In her ongoing series Project 42, launched in 2012, Molly Vaughan and her team create garments that commemorate the lives of murdered transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. Vaughan uses Google Earth takes screen shots of locations where the murders took place, then manipulates the digital images to create abstract patterns, printing them on fabric to make into clothing that can be worn by a collaborator during an “activation”.

Vaughan, who has honoured 23 of her chronologically selected 42 individuals so far, was spurred into action by the low life expectancy of trans women. She says via email: “I deeply fear travelling in much of the US. Though I continue to purposefully push into anti-trans states to be a voice for my community, I am aware that I could face a range of situations from medical discrimination in an emergency to violence from the non-trans community.

“I am fortunate that Project 42 is not rooted in experiences I have had; mostly I have experienced threats of violence but have avoided actual violence. I know many individuals in my community, though, who have experienced dangerous situations due to their transness.

“The more an individual’s identity is intersectional, the higher the likelihood of discrimination, injustice and violence. Black trans women in particular face the highest rates of violence in our community, making up more than 90% of all victims each year in the US.”

Although trans people make up only an estimated 1.4% of the population, Vaughan notes, more than a thousand legislative bills have been proposed since January 2023 to limit or take away their rights to healthcare, family privacy and equal protections under the law.

The artist adds: “The trans community has pushed tremendously hard to move ourselves out of the shadows and into more mainstream and visible areas of society. We have triumphed in so many ways and we have normalized trans inclusion far beyond what was possible just 15 years ago.

“But we are losing ground in many arenas of society, we are being demonized, stripped of our rights to live safe and productive lives, and worse of all, we are watching trans children be harmed at an alarming rate by adult bullies. Children and the parents of children are fighting against an aggressive movement of individuals most concerned on spreading misinformation for their own benefit than trying to lift up and take care of those in communities who need the most care.

“It is astounding to see politicians attack a group of people using statistics and information that they know, so obviously, is wrong just to score points with a small population of conservative voters.”

Housed in grand premises built in the early 20th century as a temple for the Freemasons, an organisation that allowed only male members, the NMWA is the world’s first major art museum solely dedicated to championing women artists.

Katie Wat, the museum’s deputy director and chief curator, says: “These women creatives choose their particular topic that resonates with them. If they are living a life where the degradation of the environment is impacting their community, they’re passionate about that.

“Through history we’ve paid a lot of attention to what male artists think about particular issues. We paid much less attention to what women creatives think about these issues and so I think an exhibition like this one that concentrates these viewpoints together is absolutely useful.”

• New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 is on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts