00:04:39.720sometimes a bowl of soup that tastes of a mother's love.
00:04:45.200Monica said, quote, our art isn't separate from life. It's a form of activism, a way to raise consciousness and bring about social change, end quote.
00:04:56.920Dorota Bitzel wrote, quote, building on tactics developed by social movements, PDGN sought to reach mass audiences through the deployment of male art,
00:05:07.600performances in urban spaces and public institutions, and participation in communications
00:05:13.760media, always with sardonic humor. They inserted themselves into street demonstrations protesting
00:05:20.220violence against women and against the tightening of abortion laws in Mexico. In 1984, wearing
00:05:26.940distinctive boots and aprons covering their visibly advanced pregnancies, Bustamante and
00:05:32.800Meyer gave more than 30 performative lectures on women artists. From 1984 to 1990, in museums,
00:05:40.660at universities, and on television, they debated and questioned stereotypes surrounding motherhood.
00:05:48.100End quote. In Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler wrote, quote, a group of women in a feminist0.97
00:05:55.840witchcraft coven once told me that to them, spiritual meant the power within oneself to
00:06:02.500create artistically and change one's life, end quote. Risa and I have often defined witchcraft
00:06:10.220as that point of intersection between our spirituality, our politics, and our creativity.
00:06:16.700We witches recognize the creative impulse as something we have in common with our creator,
00:06:22.940a divinity that invents, designs, and constructs a world in which we want to live.
00:06:32.500Meris said, quote, motherhood is a political act, an act of creation, but also one of repression if seen through the lens of patriarchy.
00:06:41.660We wanted to disrupt that narrative, end quote.
00:06:46.140And Monica wrote, quote, one day in the early 70s during a seminar at art school at the National School of Art, alias San Carlos, where I was studying,
00:06:56.420a fellow student gave a lecture on women artists and, to my surprise, at the end of her presentation,
00:07:03.740most of the male students agreed that it was because of our biology. We could never be as
00:07:08.960good artists as them. Motherhood took up all of our creativity. Apart from the astonishment I felt
00:07:16.260that they accepted this highly unscientific concept, particularly as they were artists and
00:07:22.680intellectuals and therefore generally considered to be progressive. That discussion made me
00:07:28.920understand that as an artist, not only would I have to face such misogynist crap, but that it0.99
00:07:35.440was up to me to try to do something about it. I understood that even if I produced the best0.97
00:07:41.600artistic work in the world, the fact that I was a woman would affect the way in which it was
00:07:48.620received negatively. For the first time, I was saddened by the enormous artistic potential
00:07:54.840humanity had wasted as a result of these stupid prejudices. End quote. Even their own pregnancies1.00
00:08:04.180were recontextualized as part of Polvo's artistic output. To work on a project about motherhood,
00:08:10.980the two suggest, the first step was to both get pregnant at the same time. And he said, quote,
00:08:15.860we were so scientific about this, and our methodology was so perfect that Monica's
00:08:21.040daughter is only four months older than mine. Can you imagine the precision of our methodology?
00:08:28.120How scientific our group is. End quote. 1983's Madres, Mothers, which began on May 10th,
00:08:37.720Mother's Day in Mexico, and continued for many months, challenged traditional representations
00:08:43.200of motherhood in Mexican society. The performance critiqued the idealization of women as only
00:08:49.560mothers, exposing the contradictions and pressures placed on women in patriarchal culture.
00:08:56.300Madres shattered the idyllic image of motherhood, reclaiming it from the confines of patriarchy.
00:09:02.700They showed us that being a mother is both sacred and political, a radical act of creation,
00:09:08.800but also a space where women's bodies are too often both vulnerable and controlled.
00:09:17.620Polvo exposed these contradictions, turning them into a pop culture visual language they hoped would be impossible to ignore.
00:11:50.380Pasta for the expectation that he should cook.
00:11:53.780Confused, Guillermo interrupts with bad jokes to diffuse his growing discomfort.
00:11:59.260This performance attempted to shift the notion and experience of pregnancy and domestic labor out of the home and on to television, into the public sphere, and suggested that anyone could inhabit the role of a mother, questioning the biological essentialism surrounding the idea of motherhood.
00:14:01.360Side note, I wish all of you could have seen my face when I discovered the existence of Polvo.
00:14:06.620A glow and a gape as I learned about their work, the thought and intentions behind it.
00:14:11.640My face might be better at conveying my excitement than my words.
00:14:16.300That goal of transforming the visual world in order to alter reality.
00:14:25.960So, if changing your appearance alters your reality, not who you are, but how you're treated, how the world perceives you,
00:14:34.720then changing the appearance of the world might just affect how we perceive it, how we treat each other.
00:14:43.720This is why representation matters, because what we see can affect how we think, how we feel about ourselves, how we go out into the world.
00:14:55.260When it comes to art, seeing a work can change how we see the world.
00:15:00.740Transforming the visual world alters reality.
00:16:18.060Sexuality and gender in art should be free from the limitations of culture's definitions, end quote.
00:16:24.040Her groundbreaking El Pene como Instrumento de Trabajo critiqued patriarchal perspectives, particularly those of Freud, by using humor and satire as a method of subversion.
00:16:39.040Humor in political art is a spell, a conjuring force.
00:16:44.000It disarms, it destabilizes, and it sneaks critical ideas into spaces that might otherwise remain hostile to change.
00:16:52.860Humor is the witch's sly grin, knowing that laughter loosens the knots that bind us to an oppressive system.0.99
00:17:02.220Political artists like Polvo de Gallina Negra turned humor into a weapon of feminist resistance.0.99
00:17:08.860Using satire to pierce the heart of machismo and authoritarianism,
00:17:13.560Polvo used absurdity to unravel the patriarchy's obsession with power,
00:17:19.340reducing the phallus, a symbol of dominance.
00:17:22.860to a prop of ridicule. Humor in political art also creates a bridge between the personal and
00:17:30.380the collective, inviting our participation in the act of rebellion. It allows people to laugh
00:17:36.640at their oppressors, a laughter that is inherently revolutionary. Dadaists and surrealists
00:17:45.060recognized this power during times of war and crisis, where humor became a response
00:19:52.900However, I also know that, at least in Mexico, there's a very strong new generation of women artists who will have to fight their own battles.
00:20:02.280with as much enthusiasm as we did and hopefully they will have as much fun. End quote.
00:20:09.840For the Women's March of early 2017, I had an idea. A big penis and testicles pinata with the0.99
00:20:16.960words smash the patriarchy emblazoned on the long pink shaft. I had borrowed my father's boxing1.00
00:20:23.820gloves and invited protesters to punch the symbol of hegemonic machismo, urging them on,
00:20:30.280Don't be afraid. When you smash the patriarchy, candy falls out.
00:20:35.520Some students from McGill University were making a kind of documentary on the day
00:20:39.640and approached me for an impromptu interview.0.97
00:20:42.620They asked why I had made the penis piñata.0.99
00:20:45.940Truth is, I hadn't really thought about it.0.96
00:20:48.580I had just set about with my shredded newspaper, flower water paste, and pink paint.
00:20:54.300I suppose that in the days leading up to the march,
00:20:57.000I had been more concerned with the how than the why.
00:21:01.680I'm so tired of being angry, I told them.
00:21:11.640That day, in Halloween style, I momentarily traded anger and fear for candy.
00:21:19.360Throughout the 1980s, Pulvo continued to expand its activities,
00:21:24.320Conducting a series of public interventions and performances in Mexico City,
00:21:29.020their work confronting not only gender inequality, but also related issues like reproductive rights,
00:21:34.920the undervaluing of feminized labor, and the objectification of women in mass media.
00:21:42.040In 1987, with the creation of Sin Titulo, without title, Polvo created one of their most famous works,
00:21:50.280which critiques representation of women in the media, using parodies of sexist advertising,
00:21:56.740disrupting the expected narratives around femininity, created by Monica, Maris, and photographer Herminia Dossel,
00:22:05.920featuring elements like handwritten letters, performance art documentation, photographs, sound, and film.
00:22:12.900At the core of Saint-Titulot was Polvo's conceptual approach, combining personal narratives with public interventions to critique stereotypes around motherhood and femininity, transforming the visual world to alter reality.
00:22:32.240The exhibit often incorporated audience participation, asking women to reflect on their experience with gender violence.
00:22:40.860These statements were later displayed, bringing attention to the systemic injustices faced by women, both in domestic and public spaces.
00:22:50.820This echoed Monica's 1978 work, El Tendinero, which translates to The Clothes Line,0.80
00:22:58.920where she distributed pink postcards to women and asked them to write on the cards, finishing the sentence,
00:23:05.520As a woman, what I hate most about the city is.
00:23:09.980Monica took the responses, many of which reflected on the sexual harassment that women experienced at work, on public transportation, and throughout their daily lives.
00:23:21.840She hung the cards on multiple clotheslines, conjuring both the domesticity and reality of women's lives that Pulvo would later cover in depth.
00:23:34.720Also in 78, Monica made Lo Normal, a series of postcards in which she questions the established concept of normality through a playful survey on desire.
00:23:45.240The feminist art group Bio Arte was a collective that emerged from a feminist art workshop taught by Monica in 1982.
00:23:54.280The group's work centered on the biological changes women experience.
00:23:58.400For this performance at a feminist art festival put on by Polvo, Bio Arte crafted quesanera dresses out of transparent and printed plastic, symbolically referencing the packaging used to represent young women's entry into the marriage market.
00:24:17.580Quesanera was a theme that came up a lot in Polvo's work, and Bio Arte aimed to provoke reflection on the ritual of quesanera.
00:24:25.460Polvo's goals were to analyze women's images in art and in the media
00:24:31.460To study and to promote the participation of women in art0.97
00:24:36.260To create images based on their experience as women in a patriarchal system
00:24:44.900And with the goal of transforming the visual world in order to alter reality1.00
00:24:52.280and they succeeded their magic dust worked monica wrote quote for me the hardest feminist1.00
00:25:06.020struggle has been the one i fight against my own upbringing every day although i have read1.00
00:25:11.900thousands of pages on feminism participated in tons of demonstrations worked in groups
00:25:18.340organized exhibitions, and written hundreds of articles, I must admit that my heart was formed
00:25:24.760within the fierce machismo that surrounds us. Changing these behavior patterns so that my kids
00:25:31.400grow up with a different experience, or so that my own expectations as a woman and artist are
00:25:37.080different, has been quite difficult. Having the enemy within oneself makes it hard to overcome
00:25:43.640all the contradictions. This is why, when I think on how ambitious the feminist project is,0.98
00:25:51.080or the hundreds of feminist projects are, when I realize we are trying to change the essence
00:25:59.060of society itself, I realize we still have a long, long way to go.0.66
00:26:08.300end quote. Polvo de Gallina Negra's work will continue to inspire new generations of witches
00:26:15.340and feminist artists on our long, long way to go. They broke ground, and the world looks
00:26:23.860different because of them. In 2016, the Women's Institute of Mexico City bestowed upon Monica
00:26:32.020the Omen Chulte Medal for her outstanding participation in education, arts, culture, and sports,
00:26:40.080which have inspired and impacted the development and empowerment of women.
00:26:44.680By the mid-90s, Polvo had disbanded, but left traces of their spells all over Mexico.
00:26:51.940Their black hen powder filled the air and swept across the globe,0.90
00:26:56.480covering us all in a thin layer of protective dust that is feminist art.0.94
00:27:05.320I put a bunch of pictures of their work in the show notes for this episode, so please do take a look.1.00
00:27:11.280Because Monica and Maryse didn't just make art.
00:27:14.820They conjured a movement, inscribed their magic into spaces where women's voices had been demeaned and silenced for too long.
00:27:23.700Pulvo de gallina negra were witches of the everyday, tackling the sacred within the mundane.
00:27:30.400Their powder of protection sprinkled in corners of kitchens, city streets, and art galleries, infusing spaces with a visual language of struggle and resistance.
00:27:43.720They hexed the old stories, confronting the violent machismo that permeated their society, and laughed in its face.
00:27:53.700and wrote new stories, a quilt and collage of the stories they were missing.
00:28:02.400Their works were rituals of collective consciousness and collective unconsciousness.
00:28:09.540They taught us that we can transform the visual world and alter reality,
00:28:19.540So, as we round out this season of the Missing Witches podcast, remember, dear Coven, that everything you do has the capacity to change your reality, or someone else's.
00:28:37.400Your art is not separate from your life.
00:28:42.020The witchcraft of protection takes many, many forms.