The uses of Anger

Making my inner world not only depicted in drawing and printmaking, but also three-dimensionally, has given me a sense of autonomy. Even from the get-go it was never only about my story, though it obviously plays an integral part, it is about the silencing of victims of rape and the power structures willing this violence to life. It´s about having our lives be worthy of daylight. I will host sessions of “Medusas Transfiguration” where others are invited to create and imprison (PETRIFY) the dicks that have hurt them and place them in Rind’s archive of hidden figures¹ (the shelf). As such the installation will consist of unspoken stories, and lives, the kind of lives lived that freezes the listeners; making you feel as if your life, violent as it was, can never be shared. As you had to live it the rest of the world can’t bear to even hear it.   

“Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is a grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change” (Lorde, 2017, s. 113).

While I prepare for next years printing, I meditate on my anger as the lithography crayons mark the stone. When printed I shred them, thinking of the years I was lost to myself. Scared I´d been disfigured and rendered powerless. Finally, I let go, anger surges, and I rebuild. Weaving new paper to print upon, still holding the scars of a life worth fighting for.  

In the past few years Morgenbladet published a double-sided sketch of a woman luring a man into a cage accompanying the words: “Rape: Do we care enough about men´s legal certainty?”. All while global networks of men connect in online forum !S! sharing tips on how to best drug their wives and daughters to rape them and get away with it. The Epstein files flood our screens, while Palestinians suffer in Israeli torturous captivity, Trump continues what he started his first term; reinstating and expanding the global gag rule, working overtime to illegalize abortion even when as a result of rape, globally and in the US. While Erna Solberg sold our abortion rights to KRF to get power (luckily we are gaining some back but…), Trond Giske somehow got his job back and the defense of Marius Borg Høiby is based on myths of rape and unwarranted slander of the women he has hurt. I could go on, but I trust my point is made.   

As Freud (1940) emphasized the male terror of the penisless vagina and the simultaneous assuagement of male anxiety by displacement upward through the observation of symbolic penises (Medusas snakes, Jotun magic and wisdom), I focus on a different experience for Rind and Medusa, namely, what happens when a mythic woman represents incredible strength and power.

Instead of being silent, demure, obedient women, they are the hissing, screeching, overwhelming terror who are empowered to destroy. She is no longer without a voice, without subjectivity, a powerless, inferior being. She defies death as she lives on. Medusa survives symbolically on amulets, buildings, temples and shields, on vases, fabrics, gems and coins. 

There is room for him on my shelf because I know about dying many times over, yet somehow surviving the unspeakable, something that if spoken of turns the listener to stone. As if your story holds Medusas power. That is, surviving means your story can kill any vibe, forever stun the process of getting to know new people. Turn the world to stone, harsh, cold and grey. It is about becoming unrecognizable to yourself. Tainted by the visceral knowledge of man’s capacity for cruelty, of fighting for your life. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It is a reclaiming of space, voice, narrative, a disarming where the justice-system failed. 

It could be called a revenge fantasy, more so I think of it is a record of hidden figures.

And though the shelf of severed dicks might be confrontational, the only violence it represents I´d argue is that done by the unchecked rapists. It’s not there to shock vile people out of doing vile things (though that would be welcome), or to educate people (though if it does, that´s fine), but rather it is an invitation and a space for survivors to reclaim their voice. Their “no”. Their justice (even if that truly is impossible). At least it is an attempt at shedding shame; letting anger be felt. Directed finally toward the perpetrator rather than oneself. 

It is terrifying, writing this feels like being back there. Presenting this work, feels like being back there.

Inclusive Feminism

Abject 

Uncanny

Surrealism 

I´m scared
terrified

I can already hear them sulking; angry feminist, so you want to kill all men; who´s gonna pay you then? What about the men that feel depressed,  more men die of suicide than women.  

Shouldn’t they have the right to defend themselves?

I am indeed, consequently I do not want to kill anyone (or, you know, just a terrible few I´ll admit I think we would be better off without, and I´ll be forever disappointed by COVID-19 for not taking care of that), sure, but we weren´t talking about that right now I’ll say. I´ll think: Wager it´s because they´re more violent in their attempts. It´s quite likely we´re at least equal in our attempts to escape this hellscape. As I continue: In any case this is for the sad, or depressed, or generally feeling men as well; trapped by our species hegemon /militaristic/ masculinity same as us. Just because I survived does not mean I lived, they don´t need defending – their lives kept going. And I won´t name names

but there´s a mirror over there. 

Making this work feels like living again. It feels true, like the world is real for the first time in over a decade. 

That’s why I´ll just have to risk it. 

It is my fight, my no, my call to disarm. 

“I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t”  

Lorde, 1980

Surviving as a woman often equates to not putting up a fight, as such quite possibly will prove more fatal. 

On the cause of silence, each one of us draws her own fear– fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation. But most of all, I think, we fear the visibility without which we also cannot truly live. (Lorde, 1980, s. 4)

Being believed as a woman often equates to being dead or showing more than obvious proof of having put up a fight; otherwise known as nearly dead. Remember, if you are to be believed you can´t be considered ugly. If you are considered beautiful – you should rather just “take the compliment”, as it were. Better be careful telling someone “No”; it might transfigure you from the most beautiful woman in the world to a heinous bitch in the blink of an eye. May the courts have mercy on you if you wore a skirt (or didn´t, which is far worse a crime, have you forgotten you job already: Be sexy), or cry, surely only lying women weep while reporting rape. Go to a festival? Why would you be so carless, I´m sorry but it´s on you.   

The shelves of justice as such I see as a sentiment to the impossibility of resisting. Because it honestly is dangerous to resist, my depiction of disfigured dicks is not a call to violence, it is not hatred, it’s merely a way of making the unseen violence rape victims experience seen. And the only way I know how to give myself some semblance of peace. As Lorde (2017) puts it: “My fear of anger taught me nothing. Your fear of that that anger will teach you nothing, also” (Lorde, p. 107). From Pandoras box came hope.     

In this moment
I´m no longer

PETRIFIED

They will be petrified

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1. You´ve found Pandoras Box. ↩︎

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Sources:

Lorde, A. (1980). The Transformation of silence into Language and Action. Speech originally  delivered at the Lesbian and Literature panel of the Modern Language Association’s December 28, 1977, meeting. Downloaded 20.05.26 from https://interminablerambling.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2a815thetransformationofsilenceintolanguageandaction_byaudrelorde.pdf

Lorde, A. (2017). Your Silence Will Not Protect You. Silver Press.