What do you think of this powerful statement? Tell all below.
("Are you okay bob?") "Untitled (are you okay bob?)" shows Hewson’s face as she experiences a “self-orchestrated ‘rape representation.' " It's tough to watch.
Un-simulated. According to Hewson’s statement about her piece, “The scene was arranged and choreographed by the artist, it was also un-simulated and enacted by a stranger who came to her home.” That can't have been awkward.
The visuals. According to the Mirror Online, “Throughout the video the camera remains focused on Hewson’s face. The face of the man, referred to in the video as Bob, is not in view but his hands and arms are."
What does it all mean? Hewson aims to shift the dialogue about sexual assault. “The raped woman is nearly always depicted with her face downcast and her eyes averted,” she explains. "The most confronting aspect of Untitled ('are you ok bob?'), isn't watching as a woman is struck or penetrated, it's seeing her look back out at us from the experience.”
The gaze. It’s important to Hewson that you’re looking into her eyes as she’s being sexually assaulted. “Caught in her gaze,” she says, “the viewer is not only forced to bear witness to her subjectivity, but implicated in her desolation.”
What does the title mean? The title has several meanings, firstly, referring to the first words spoken by Hewson after the act, off camera. She says they were unscripted. They do, however, carry a lot of meaning.
Are you okay? “My intention with this title,” she explains, “was to reference the orchestrated nature of the event — who is using whom in this situation? — and also to highlight the way in which women are still encouraged to put others’ emotional wellbeing before their own.”
Taking back the power. Rape isn’t just an unwanted sexual act, according to Hewson. It is “the foundation for the entire institution of the patriarchy,” she says, “and hence it is the crucial battleground for dismantling male power.”
Man’s power. If rape is, as Hewson describes it, “the ultimate weapon of male-domination,” than “anything outside of being permanently impacted by the experience, undermines male weaponry.”
The power of choice. "To choose to put yourself in this situation, to show (even symbolically) a woman enduring the scene in Untitled ('are you ok bob?'), is conceptually challenging,” says Hewson, "because it threatens our assumption that man's power is insurmountable. And in the ideology of patriarchy that is the deepest offence possible.”
Our reaction to rape. The concept of being horrified by the subject of rape, Hewson says, isn’t simply about our desire as people to stop sexual assault. “If it was,” she says, “it would go hand in hand with legal reforms, political prioritization, and a genuine support for victims.”
Taboo. It’s in Hewson’s opinion crucial to the patriarchy that the concept of rape is seen as taboo, “because demystifying the act challenges shame and erodes the fear that is needed to suppress the majority.”
Sophia Hewson. Hewson is a multidisciplinary artist. She graduated from the Victoria College of Arts with First Class Honours in 2007. She has exhibited her work internationally, and she was selected by Art Collector Magazine as one of Australia’s 50 most collectable artists.
Glitter. Her work includes 'Dy Dykrenore,' which “featured a large scale ice sculpture with an imbedded kangaroo spine, and 'Delivered [internalising the pervert/or re-building the body psyche]' where she was “suspended for several hours covered in black glitter.”
Emma Sulkowicz. Sulkowicz had a similar art project titled “Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol.” The video, which is eight minutes long, shows Sulkowicz and a man with a blurred face. “About three minutes into the video, the man hits Sulkowicz, takes his condom off, and then anally penetrates her while she cries out and tells him to stop,” according to the Columbia Daily Spectator. "If you watch this video without my consent, then I hope you reflect on your reasons for objectifying me and participating in my rape, for, in that case, you were the one who couldn't resist the urge to make 'Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol' about what you wanted to make it about: rape.”
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