Punishment Without a Crime (Kazen brez zločina)

A
critique of misogynist social values, Punishment Without a Crime is based
on actual historical events. Immediately after the liberation in 1945 there was
a brutal cutting of the hair of several ten thousand women who socialised or
flirted with occupation soldiers. This was reason enough for their public
humiliation and punishment. Hair cutting, whilst a completely ordinary action,
is under such a perspective transformed into a form of social castration of
women as well as a mechanism for the consolidation of established social
relations between genders. The wall painting with hair, includes scenes of
violent hair cutting which manifest social power over an individual and the
power of men over women alike. Cut hairs are metaphorical testimonies of
women's humiliation and degradation. With photo-documentary as the aesthetic
platform and patriarchal violence over the innocent the subject, this allows
the authoress to unravel and problematise such historical traumas, cultural
restrictions and ideological controversies. (Elena Fajt)

Organisation: City of Women; In collaboration with;
Škuc Gallery.