Amanda Charchian Artist-Photographer Interview via REDEFINE magazine
“I appear defiant because I have something to rebel against, something to be resistant to. Every artist I admire has something to say, to instigate, a passion to ignite.”– Amanda Charchian
mwt3
(via theonlymagicleftisart)
“This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.
Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”
This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.”
This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain the no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.”
this is why performance art is important
So every single person who told me ‘ignore them they’ll go away’ and ‘you can’t let them know they bothered you’ and ‘They’ll stop if they don’t see you react’ and all that bull shit, my entire school career, I want you to look good and hard at this.
I want you to think about what you said.
What you keep saying.
What you are telling your children.
You are making them powerless.
(via darlingim-drunk)
Kemineko
(via simplyabsurd)
night owls
There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God
http://proud-atheist.tumblr.com
(via jackandjohn)
Our eagle-eyed conservators spotted an ancient Roman bust in the collection that looks very much like Zach Galifianakis.
(via absolumentmoderne)
Fucking Rape Culture: That awkward moment when people forget what abuse actually does to someone
Do you want to know what the reason was that I cut off contact with my abusive rapist ex after we split?
It was cuz I was afraid I would reenter the relationship or get close to them again.
And really, it was a close friend (and later partner) who did it for me. Entered my accounts and blocked the ex (I was already living far away). So I didn’t even do it without help.
Abuse is built to rope you in. It is designed to make you dependent, to make you feel like you need the abuser, need to be with them. It brainwashes you, robs you of your capacity to escape, even as you’re wondering how you could survive another day with the person who’s hurting you. You can rationally know all the way that you’re being ripped apart mentally and spiritually by that person. You can know that everything they do is wrong.
But in the end, you’re still gonna feel that intense, almost urgent love. Cuz that’s what it does.
To criticize anyone for loving an abuser or for going back (like Rihanna being back in touch with Chris Brown, Madonna thinking of Sean Penn as the love of her life as two examples) is to fundamentally NOT FUCKING COMPREHEND what the fuck is going on. And it’s to blame someone for the equivalent of brainwashing thru torture inflicted on them.
Who the fuck do you think you are? How in the fuck do you think your bullshit helps anyone?
‘Victim blaming’ as a phrase dulls the impact of this.
You are blaming someone for being unable to swim when their legs got tied by someone else and the riptide is dragging them away from shore.
You are blaming someone for the natural response to this sort of torture, something that can take an entire lifetime to reduce, much less eliminate.
It is vile. It is disgusting. And so are you if you think for one second you can even dare to criticize, attack or prod at any abuse survivor/victim who goes back or still loves their abuser.
I wish someone and told me all this when I was having trouble cutting contact off with my ex. I felt like shit, I’d tell him he wasn’t good for me, I didn’t need him in my life, and hours later be begging him to talk to me. He told me I needed him to keep me straight, told me he was looking out for me, told me it was my fault he ended our relationship, it was my fault he broke my trust and hooked up with other girls. And, up until I finally cut contact with him for good, he still told me it was my fault he raped me, because how dare I be close to him and comfort him when I know when he’s depressed all he wants is sex, I took advantage of him by being a friend and letting him have what he wanted with only a little resistance.
No one told me it was abuse. No one did anything except criticize me for going back over and over, for hanging on still. I had friends leave me because no one understood how I couldn’t leave him, how hard it was, because he made me need him.
That’s what abuse does. Abuse makes the abuser the center of your life. Because that makes it the only way to cope with it. He would only do things like that because he truly cared about me, right? It was my fault, not his, because he’s still in my life and I couldn’t possibly be in love with someone so fucked up, right?
Abuse victims need love and support. Not criticism. Not shaming. Not lectures. Abuse is hard enough without society “helping”
This is just so, so, so, so important for people to read. I wish that people understood this better.
