Women’s Taxi

The position of women in society is the main theme that runs
through a large part of Aprilija Lužar’s art. But even in the way she lives,
she strives to bring about a change in the way women are treated. This year’s
multimedia project, called Women’s Taxi, combines her previous artistic
experience in a form she calls taxi- or mobile-art. This women’s artistic
transportational therapeutic action is an attempt to establish a communication
between art, the public, and women in their common struggle against violence.
It involves an anonymous, free-of-charge taxi ride for female passengers around
Ljubljana and its surroundings. Riding in a taxi with Aprilija Lužar as
taxi-driver is a therapy session in which the taxi plays the role of a mobile
public confessional and the taxi-driver is a kind mental health counsellor. The
traveller who hires the taxi in order to confess the violence she has
experienced in this way collaborates in the art project and, with the help of
the artistic process, deconstructs the perception of herself as victim. The
central point of the action is, then, to create an awareness in every
individual that rape and violence towards women concern not just the woman
involved, but should be viewed as a problem of the entire society. ‘With the
mobile painting Women’s Taxi action, I am stressing an energetic
familiarisation with paintings and painting certain spheres of the
familiarisation in my role as a mobile artist / automobile — self (auto)
portrait — autos / taxi art, with unlimited resources,’ comments the artist. In
addition to the mobile action, the project includes a video and painting
installation and a performance. Aprilija Lužar and her Women’s Taxi won this
year’s V-Day — STOP RAPE
international competition, which also provided the means for its realisation.
The competition, organised by Eve Ensler, the American activist and author of
The Vagina Monologues, is an international initiative encouraging original
strategies to stop violence against women. The competition recognised in Taxi
an initiative for woman-power, action, and creativity. The project was devised
in co-operation with the Ljubljana-based Women’s Counselling Group, as well as
the Women War Victims Centre and the Autonomous Women’s House in Zagreb, and
Ljubljana’s Studio Zmajček.

This invitation goes out to every woman who would like to
speak anonymously about or against violence and receive a free taxi ride
through Ljubljana or its surroundings in the Women’s Taxi from September 24–26,
4 p.m.–6 p.m. Call: 031 252 006
The exhibition in KUD France Prešeren is open September 24–October 7, 4 p.m.–10
p.m.
October 4, 8 p.m.: Performance, slide and video projection Model.
Atelje: Aprilija Lužar, D. Briga 4, 1338 Kočevska reka, Slovenija
Telefon: 01 894 00 80, GSM: 031 252 006

in cooperation with: Ženska svetovalnica (Ljubljana), Centar
za žene, žrtve rata in Autonomna ženska kuča (Zagreb), Studio Zmajček
(Ljubljana), KUD France Prešeren, Mesto žensk / City of Women.
Sponsored by V-Day Stop Rape Contest