just a reminder
“… she finds herself at odds with language, which partakes in the white-male-is-norm ideology and is used predominantly as a vehicle to circulate established power relations.”
–Woman Native Other, Trinh T. Minh-ha
I. Constructing and deconstructing language
a. How does the female voice redefine a language that is used to create power relations? e.g. Dualistic and binary oppositions of man/woman, white/black vs. metaphor, which is not a thing, but a relationship between things.
b. What other forms of communication and reasoning are there besides Aristotelian logic? e.g. What ways of expression create a language of paradox and metaphor rather than logic and clarity?
II. Body, death, memory, ritual, violence
a. Body
1. Is body/form apparent?
2. Is it authoritative or personal/ instructive or perplexing?
3. Does Cardoso associate women with nature and earth? And if so how? How does she draw upon metaphor?
b. Death
1. Why did Cardoso label her piece Death Becomes Her?
2. What are the parallels between female and death?
3. Why does it become (look good on) her?
4. How does the sculpture itself relate to female and death?
c. Memory
1. Is memory present in this installation and if so how does it
instruct me as a viewer?
d. Ritual
1. Is there a connection between ritual and death?
2. Is there a connection between ritual and female?
3. What is Cardoso’s cultural influence on ritual and death?
e. Violence
1. Is violence present in this piece, and if so how?
2. Is the violence telling a personal or collective story?