 Good afternoon and welcome, excuse my voice, it's cold season in the heat and I'm just getting over it so I'm not contagious. I'd like to welcome you today, it's really a delight and an honor and I'm very excited to have Christina Viaggi come and speak to us today and I'm really thrilled that all of you are here. One of the great parts about the forum in the center is that we are able to provide and produce programming like this and so I'm delighted that you're taking advantage of it and I'm sure that you're going to have a wonderful opportunity to hear and to have dialogue with Dr. Viaggi. Lucy LePard wrote in the wonderful Power of Feminist Art by Gerard and Brode, she wrote feminist art replaces modernist egotistical monologue with dialogues between art and society, between artist and audience, between women artists of the present and those of the past, intensity arises from the rawness of personal experience and impact from the power of personal truth. When I was thinking about this center and starting this center and having this center this was a very important piece of information for me to think about. The suppression and oppression of women in any form whether or not it is mild or radical is directly linked to a biological fact. This means that our bodies are targets and this is very personal. Hence feminist art and the mantra of feminist art is the personal is political. The work manifested by women and feminist artists and women arts activists is usually honest and intimate it's sometimes raw and confrontational and demands and it often commands our attention. I read this before we begin today would you like to come in and have a seat or you just sort of want to see whether or not you want to stay. I'm not putting you on any no stay stay as long as you want you can stand right there. The act of creating creates action as the action of creation is acting in creativity. Working in art is an action and the action of creating action. Action and art art is action. These days creation and action by word or by deed by inference or exactitude is on everybody's mind. I wrote that this morning. Thank you very much and please join me in welcoming Christine Viagra that was lovely. Thank you so much Elizabeth that was just wonderful that set me up. I have been an activist for a long time and my activism has inspired a particular body of work that I've created at different periods of my artistic career. Besides going to the usual protests against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the nuclear industrial complex in New York City, Washington DC and other places I protested along with other women all over the world in places like Greenham Common, Comiso and Seneca Falls in upper state New York. All this activity basically took place in the 70s and late 70s and early 80s and this is inspired the body of work which I'm going to show you. In 1980 slide webs were woven in connection with women's pentagon action. Women were protesting the pentagon's role in nuclear proliferation. Nuclear webs were woven around the fences of the pentagon, around the pentagon itself as a symbol of women's unity in a common purpose. The web was considered to be a powerful symbol of the worldwide women's movement emphasizing women united in the protest against the nuclear industrial complex and the desire for world peace. What follows is the beginning of the unity statement of the women's pentagon action and you can forward and forward again. We are gathering at the pentagon on November 17th because we fear for our lives. We fear for the life of this planet, our earth and the life of our children who are our human future. We have come here to mourn and rage and defy the pentagon because it is the workplace of the imperial power which threatens us every day. Every day while we work, study, love, the colonels and generals who are planning our annihilation walk calmly in and out of the doors of its five sides. You can go on. We are in the hands of men whose power and wealth have separated them from the reality of daily life and from the imagination and then from the women's pentagon action. 1980, November 17th. I didn't go to the first women's pentagon action but I did go, there were about 10 of them in all and I did go to some of them and here are some images of some of the later ones. Slide. Slide and slide and slide. Okay, now I'm going to talk about Seneca Falls. Slide. Some of these images are, many of these images are mine but some of them are by Catherine Alport, my friend who was also up there at the, at Seneca Falls, peace encampment. Women created encampments situated next to missile bases in order to protest the proliferation of weapons aimed at the Soviet bloc. In fact, peace camps were established all over the world, including in Nairobi, Kenya and certainly, you know, in England, in Italy, in France, in, in Germany, in Holland, there were a lot of peace camps. In all cases, women wore, wore wolf webs surrounding the army bases. I visited some of the encampments, as I said before, three of them. I stayed at Seneca Falls a few weekends in 1983. Slide. And with hundreds of other women, took part in peaceful demonstrations, including climbing over the fence into the nuclear base. And then, of course, as soon as we climbed over it, we were arrested and that was part of the whole thing. As you can see here, many of these women are nude because that's what they did. And of course, this created problems with the surrounding populace, which tended to be a little more, you know, Bible believing and all that. Okay. A few words about, okay, slide. A few words about the Seneca Falls peace encampment. It was founded in 1983 and it was modeled after Greenham Common. And here is the main house of Seneca. Slide. Okay. I'd like to read you the vision statement of the Seneca Falls. Vision statement, which is from the back cover of the encampment handbook. And this is what it said, women have played an important role throughout our history in opposing violence and oppression. We have been the operators of the Underground Railroad, the spirit of the eco rights movement and the strength among tribes. Remember, this is at Seneca Falls. So the Iroquois tribes were very, they were based there. And giving voice to the 19th century feminist movement. Once again, women are gathering at Seneca, this time to challenge the nuclear threat at its doorstep. The Seneca Army Depot, Native American homeland, once nurtured and protected by the Iroquois, is now the storage site for the neutron bomb and most likely the Pershing II missile. And is the departure point for weapons to be deployed in Europe. Women from New York State, from the United States and Canada, basically from all over Europe and from Australia and New Zealand and so on and so forth came to Seneca Falls in the early 80s. The existence of nuclear weapons is killing us. Their production contaminates our environment, destroys our natural resources. And slide, and our human dignity and creativity. But the most critical danger they will present is to life itself. Sickness, accidents, genetic damage and death. These are the real products of the nuclear arms race. We say no to the threat of a global Holocaust, no to the arms race, no to death. We say yes to a world where people, animals and plants in the earth itself are respected in values. And I don't think it's changed much since then, unfortunately. So what did we do at Seneca Falls? How did we protest? The encampment utilized a number of different techniques in their protest to bring their causes and issues to the attention of the outside world. They used many ritual elements. The women would protest in large circles, holding hands, weaving webs of yarn around each other and around the fence or army depot. They performed slow walks where they would walk in slow motion, twisting, turning, pulling each other along in one protest that they tied themselves to the fence with ribbons and yarns. And we'll see that slide. Other demonstrations featured singing, dancing, masks, costume, makeup and signs. Sometimes dynes were performed, this is a dyn here, to imitate war casualties. There was even a laundry ritual in which women hung sides in a local laundromat while doing their laundry. And of course, fence climbing was a chief activity, which usually resulted in arrest. Okay, slide, slide, slide. These are two women from Greenham Common that came to help us protest. Slide. This is my friend Gail. Slide, slide, slide, slide. Okay, climbing the fence. Slide. Looks as if she's being booted across the fence. Slide, slide. Look how happy she is. She's being arrested. Slide. And here's a young woman from Minnesota who's encountering the soldiers. Slide. And being arrested. Slide, slide. Okay, I'd like to talk about one incident. It's called the Waterloo Bridge incident. On July 30th, 1983, about 100 women from all over the U.S., including women who had been at Greenham and who had participated in some of the Pentagon actions, walked, began a peace walk from Seneca Falls all the way to the women's peace encampment. Four miles into their walk, their way was blocked by several protesters, local protesters. So what did they do? And these protesters started calling them and saying, commies, go home, lesbians, vegetarians, all kinds of other things like that. No. To diffuse everything. The women sat down in the classic position of, you know, non-violence. The standoff lasted some time and the police told the marchers that if they did not disperse, they would be arrested. So the townspeople threatened the women with their flag poles. I didn't actually see this, but I heard all about it. Threatened the women with their flag poles as if they were swords. And here they were, you know, and saying that our action would lead to conquest by the Russians and the denial of our freedom in the United States. I mean, you know, it was all very dramatic. Finally, 54 women were arrested, including the wife of the mayor of the town because she had joined the protesters. And then eventually the charge was dismissed. Okay, slide, slide, slide. These are women being arrested. Wailing, slide, slide. Don't they look happy? The fence, slide, slide. This is one of the women, the 54 women. Slide, another one, slide, slide. One of the women sitting down, slide. Onlookers, slide. The witness says yes. Slide. This is in the center there. This is Gwen Kirk from Greenham Commons. She was quite something if anybody remembers her. Slide, slow walk and wailing. Slide, a die in, slide. Another die in, slide. At the main gate, Nagasaki Day, slide. Slide, slide, slide. Some of the locals with their motorcycles, slide. Catherine Allport photographing them, slide. And some confrontation between the media, as you can see on the right. Slide. The locals. Slide, wonderful picture. Slide taken by Catherine Allport. Slide, slide, slide. And this is a women's sign, of course, that we used to do all the time. Slide. Okay, and this was in the local paper, and I'm here. That's me with a hat. And that's Gail behind me, a friend of mine. This is after we climbed the fence with 600 people, including Dr. Spock, the baby doctor. And we were jailed for a day. Slide. And then, of course, we talked, we had conferences about what we had done and what we had seen and what we had witnessed and all that. And here's one of the flyers for one of the talks that we did. Slide. Okay, then I went in 1983. I went to Greenham Common and took part in an action with 40,000 women from all over the world. We dismantled a good part of the fence around the base and confronted the police and the Barbies. Here's part of my description of the action which was published in Women News, January 6, 1983. On Sunday, December 11, 1983, about 40,000 women converged upon Greenham Common. Excuse me. U.S. Air Force Base to protest peacefully the installation of cruise missiles, which had begun in November and to celebrate two successful years of women's peace encampments, existence despite mounting opposition. You can slide. From the government and the media, women came from all parts of England, Europe, Australia and the United States and also, you know, Europe. Some read statements for the benefit of the numerous international press who were present. The women, along with some men and children, were arriving at 10 a.m. and by 1 p.m. they were over 200 buses parked at the main gate. The women started moving around the base. Slide. Okay, here is singing in front of the main gate. Slide. Inside the peace and freedom tent. Slide. This is the living conditions in Greenham. Slide. Slide. Quaint. Slide. Slide. Slide. There were some wonderful banners all over. Slide. And this is at the main gate. Look at the posters on the left there. Slide. Okay. All right, the women started to slide. One more. Okay. These are onlookers. Women started moving slowly around the base. Chanting, singing, milling around the fence like a slowly moving but powerful river. Especially recruited policemen, weaponless bobbies, thank God they were weaponless, lined the fence on the outside in every 10 feet. British military police were stationed on the inside of the fence at regular intervals. And behind them, American MPs armed with Billy clubs and attack dogs. All of a sudden, a number of women tried to climb the fence. Slide. But were prevented by the bobbies then as if it had been carefully pre arranged. The women closest to the fence fastened their fingers onto the chain link and started pulling on the fence in unison, chanting and yelling. This massive effort produced surprising results in a short period of time before the police could react sufficiently. The fence was nearly pulled down in several places. 40,000 women. Slide, slide, slide, slide. This gives you an idea of the amount of women. Police reinforcements appeared swiftly and started to push the women away, knocking some of them down, but the women, undaunted, came back time and time again to the fence with increasing vigor. Now the British and the American MPs on the other side of the fence flew into action, banging their belly covers on the fence, some deliberately aiming at the women's fingers. Some of the women who managed to climb over the fence were vigorously pushed back by the police, who may have been instructed to make few arrests and avoid greater publicity, except for a few nervous policemen who overreacted. The police were well behaved, considering the sea of determined women facing and greatly outnumbering them. 56 women were arrested and there were some broken fingers and wrists. One policeman suffered a pencussion from a falling fence post. While fence pulling was the most dramatic part of the action, only a small portion of the women were involved. The rest supported them with shouts, singing and keening. Mirrors were flashed towards the base to turn the base inside out, which is a shamanic technique. With the coming of night, there were candle vigils, group rituals and more slow chanting. While the women continued milling around the fence, pulled a slide. Even though the main part of the action took place between one and five, some activity continued until eight and nine. This is from the December 11th action at Greenham Common that was published in Women News January 6, 1983. Slide. Women lived along the fence around Greenham from 1981 to 2000. The United Air Force Base in the British closed the cruise missile base in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 19-year period from 1981 to 2000, the women wore wool of continual webs along the fence surrounding the camp. Throughout the camp's existence, thousands of women took non-violent direct action at the base and in towns and places all throughout Britain. Actions were taken in the spirit of celebrating and protecting all life and challenging the basis of nuclear violence. The spirit of Greenham not only spread across England like a web but the United States and Europe as well and other places. Slide. Slide. Three Americans and three, oh no, four Americans and three British climbing over the fence the next day. Slide. Slide. Bobby's repairing the fence. Slide. Slide. All right. Comiso. I have very few images of Comiso in Sicily because I was arrested and they were taken, everything that I had, all my cameras and so on were impounded. So this, you know, I'm going to have to talk about it. Slide. Okay. This is the town of Comiso. It's a small little town in the middle of Sicily. In Italy, the Ragnatella slide. Word for Italian, word in Italian for web was started as a woman's protest camp on the outskirts of Comiso, an American cruise missile base based in Sicily in 1982. A few words about the Comiso base. In 1982, the small town of Comiso in Sicily was chosen to house the largest arsenal of cruise atomic missiles in Europe. Comiso was an especially sensitive area since it would link parts of Eastern Europe and Western Russia, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Egypt and all of North Africa. The townspeople of Comiso were very upset by this and about the nuclear base and they signed a petition against the base. The participation of the women's groups was unique because the women couldn't go out the way the men or they didn't go out the way the men did. So the women couldn't circulate as freely as the men. So they went from door to door and talked to other women about their, you know, the fact that they were very unhappy about the base. And they denounced the U.S. project and urged their peers to fight against it. In 1983, female activists in Sicily issued an invitation to women throughout the world to join them in Comiso in March on International Women's Day. The result was three days of dancing, parades and an effort to encircle the base. And unfortunately, violence occurred. However, when groups decided to try to stop the trucks entering the base and the police responded violently, arresting many women and dragging them by the hair. So this was in the news. I didn't participate in that action. I came in 1984. The women in the Ragnatella realized that the missiles represented the top of the iceberg in a society that takes a very passive attitude toward rape and exploitation. One of their most dramatic actions was sparked by this realization, which came as a result of the following incident. A young girl was raped by three masked men. And no particular blame was attached to the men, while the woman was kept indoors by her grieving and ashamed family. So the Catania women took this incident as their rallying point. 500 of them marched into Comiso and headed for the square, which was usually full of men. Each woman wore a sign saying, I am a woman that was raped at Comiso. I am this woman. I was raped. When the women arrived at the square, they found it full of about 5,000 men. At first they were frightened, but then their anger took over. And they realized that this young woman had been raped and nobody was doing anything about it. So as a result of this they started chanting and they pressed the men back. And the men cleared a passage for them until the women were all inside with the men. And then the women linked hands and they started chanting and keening and so on and so forth. And they pushed all the men back out until every man was out of the square and the men didn't make one bit of sound. Well, I heard this and I had to go, of course. I visited the Ragnatela in 1984 with the intention of spending a few days there and taking part in some actions. When I arrived there I found no one there. It turned out that the women had gotten sick and all at the same time probably because of poor sanitary conditions and had gone to the hospital. I conducted my own protest action by climbing onto the roof of the utility which was used as the basis for this camp. Something that was forbidden. Within 10 minutes two police cars descended upon me and arrested me. And I'd like to, you know, redo what I, and I ended up spending four very, very interesting days in a Sicilian jail. Something I'll never forget. It wasn't that bad, but I mean, you know, in retrospect it wasn't, but at the time. I arrived at Comiso at 3.30 p.m. on Thursday, January 12th and was directly, and went directly to the Ragnatela. The women's encampment which borders on the Maliochio air base. This is from a periodical called Bad News from, you know, you probably remember, you New Yorkers remember Bad News. It's a gay publication in the 80s. Okay, no one was there. I was devastated because I'd been looking forward to staying here so much. I called and suddenly a man, Tino, appeared and offered me wine, of course. According to him, the women had left one month before because they'd all gotten sick. And because the predominantly English women wanted to pattern the Ragnatela after Greenham and the Italians resented this, of course. I found this strange and asked him to tell me how I could locate some of these women. He gave me some names and he gave me some telephone numbers and I called. And I contacted a person by the name of Cathy Manus and Adele Fiascessa and arranged to see them in the next couple of days. Then I spent the night in a pensioning right near the base. The next morning I got up and was at the base at 8.30. I went to the air base with the intention of photographing the Ragnatela and the base. So I took several pictures of the base and I even took pictures of a sign saying, don't take pictures of the base. Then I saw two soldiers who said, no, don't do that, don't do that. And I took pictures of them. So of course, I was dictating what next would happen. And sure enough, I was on top of the roof of the Ragnatela when suddenly two police cars from two different sides barge in on, you know, and then five policemen from each car jump out and say, lay, soprali, vinga jusubito, come down immediately. I said, what the fuck, what did I do? And so, well, it went on a little bit like this. Okay, one of them told me that since he was not sure, basically I was taken into custody. One of them told me that since he was not sure I was taken photos of the base, I would have to follow him to the police station. There I was interrogated and my passport and camera were confiscated. We don't have slides in this part. I admitted that I had taken photos of the base and told the Marichalo, my reason for coming here, my feelings about the base and about the missiles and about, you know, the American presence in, you know, in Sicily in this terribly awful fashion, three hours passed. Finally, I was informed that I was arrested and had to sign several documents in front of a judge. I was allowed one phone call and I called Kathy Manos, one of the women who I was supposed to have meet and she told me she would get me a lawyer. Then my bags were searched, my camera, my photo equipment was taken and my car was impounded. I was put in a police wagon in a company to the Ragusa prison, which is a medieval prison with walls that are two meters thick and a gate, a front gate that is about this thick. And the vice-martial on the way started telling me, you know, he said, I admire you, senor. I have some miniature paintings in my house. Maybe you'd like to come and see them after you get out of prison. And, you know, and then when he left me in the prison and when he, you know, escorted me inside and so on, he started corringdante. He said, nel mezzo del camin di vostra vita, mi ritrovae in una scura scura, you know. Okay. And then the gate clanked shut, and that was it. I arrived at the prison at 3.30 p.m. and was fingerprinted and photographed. Then I was admitted to the women's division and placed in a cell approximately line feet by five feet. I stayed in prison four days from January 13th through the 16th. I was in solitary confinement for the duration of my stay, which meant that I was technically not allowed to have communication with the others and was locked in my cell the whole time except when I needed to go to the bathroom or when I had one hour to exercise. I had no communication with the outside world, no TV like the other newspapers. The other prisoners were discouraged from talking to me. However, since this was Italy, we managed to talk and I was able to feel their human warmth and that of the four women guards who were also very kind to me. There were five other prisoners in the women's division, 190 prisoners in all. The men were, you know, naturally many more men. Two had killed their husbands, and I could really understand why they killed their husbands because Sicily is a very patriarchal place. And three were in for theft. The food was abundant but very starchy. I spent my time reading. The hardest part was waiting for the event which would decide my fate. My lawyer and the judge were scheduled to arrive together to interrogate me. This would take place any time, day or evening. When I might expect this, I was told soon, in a few days, maybe a week. At 5.30 p.m. on January 16th, a guard came into the prison and proclaimed, La prigioniera viaggi è liberata. And he banged. I was elated and I kissed my fellow prisoners and the guards goodbye and packed my things. The guard returned. Is the liberated one ready? So I was taken to the Justice Department where I was questioned for three hours. Had to sign more papers and was issued an exit visa for January 25th. Then I was released. That was the, you know, that's my, that's my story slide. Okay, well what, what did all this protesting accomplish? I think it made people, the media aware of the U.S. involvement in massive amounts of armaments. Why did we climb the fence? How can getting arrested for doing so help the cause of world peace and nuclear disarmament? If the act is isolated and considered only as a literal event, it's worthless, it's, it's essentially worthless. Symbolically, climbing the fence is surmounting an obstacle, crossing a barrier, denying passive acceptance of the thing, of the way things are. If the web is damaged or torn down, the spider recreates it again and again in order to survive the spider must never give up. Therefore climbing the fence became a symbolic act of survival for women. By repeating this act of civil disobedience again and again, women tried to make the rest of the world understand that they were not going to sit down and give up. This is what we must start doing now all over the world. Some of us are already doing it in some way or other. In art and, you know, in, in talking about it and so on. We must keep it up for our sake, for our children, for our animals and plants, and for our beautiful work, beautiful earth. Another result of this protesting, civil disobedience, etc., was that some of us, like me, were inspired to create art reflecting these actions or write about them. Okay, slide. The work that was inspired by these actions. Actually, so I did a series, I started in the 70s before I really, you know, took part in these actions. I started with a series of crucifixions and here are some of them. The triptych form, as you know, is used for these works with the way of depicting religious art in the Middle Ages, so that's why I use the triptych form, the three, you know. These are collages on wood, on a wood backing, and the triptych, of course, clothes. These work reflect women's plight all over the world. Her inequality, which in some instances is like a crucifixion. Her second classness, her low position. Women on the wings of the crucifixions look on in concentrated empathy at the women on the cross. And on the wings, you see, I was teaching art history at the time, so a lot of these women are derived from Van Eyck, from Giotto, from Piero della Francesca, and others. And there's Joan of Arc here in the bottom. Slide. Here we have the female Christ on the cross and the sacred sheet that Christ was wound at, touching all of the women. And here's Ingrid Bergman as Joan of Arc, in that wonderful, yeah, maybe some of you will remember that. Slide. Sejourner truth. Here. Slide. I've had the worst time of all, I think. And here I started putting some of my friends and some of my, you know, some of my relatives, like my sister, right there, and my mother up there, looking at the woman who is crucified. Slide. I also did an animal crucifixion because I was getting into animal rights, into protesting for animal rights at that point. And the animal crucifixion is basically the same. It's even more horrible. It was very hard to do this piece. Very, very hard indeed. And on the wings of this piece, again, like the crucifixion with the human beings on the cross, the animals are looking on because they might be next. They might be next, you might be tortured. Slide. This piece that I just showed you is two and a half by two and a half feet in size. And then I had it blown up to 14 feet by 12 feet and transferred the cloth and put on a frame and then I carried it in a big animal rights demonstration in Washington against the treatment of the Springfield Monkeys by the Department of Health. If any of you remember that. Slide. Okay. And then in 1984, I started, you know, I'd already gone to a lot of encampments and so on. I started a piece called Cutting the Red Tape. And here I use the triptych motif or, yes. This is, I consider this a precursor to some of my webs that you'll see later on. Okay. In this case, I show in the center panel and in the wings of the crucifixion, I mean of the triptych, I show the women's rights movements from the Suffragettes, the women on the left side of the triptych. I show women against apartheid in South Africa and on the right too. And then in the middle portion of the triptych, you can probably see some of the images you saw before, Seneca Falls, Greenham Common and so on. And finally at the very top of the triptych is a woman, my friend Gail who's actually doing the women's peace sign. And then there's a black woman, you know, Eve, Lucy or whoever, we're all descended from a black woman in Africa, as you know. Slide. These are details from Cutting the Red Tape. Slide. And of course I couldn't get away from showing Johto's Angels. So here are Johto's Angels. Slide. And my daughter doing the peace sign and my sister. Slide. These are details, okay. And then in the center a lot of the abortion rights protest in Germany and in Holland and also in Italy. Slide. And always the hands going up, pushing, pushing, helping, helping, you know, the symbol of the hands. Slide. The suffragettes, Emily Pankhurst here. And her daughter Sylvia Pankhurst being carted away by the police in some of their demonstrations. Slide. And Confrontation at Greenham Common. Slide. Sojourner Truth. Slide. Coretta Scott King. Slide. Okay, and then I also I couldn't resist. I transferred this to to make it larger and this is a recent picture of me in front of my piece. Slide. Okay, but my, you know, my great okay. Slide. Okay, finally I created a large piece. Well, this was not that large called, which I call the web. It was during this period of my life naturally that I was rediscovering the power of women and so on by visiting campings and taking parts and peaceful protests that I started to create webs. First I created a small model which you can see here. It's in my kitchen. And it was a collage again. I used double sided collage this time on pieces of wood black and white collage connected with red string the blood that connects us all. Now our menstrual blood the blood that goes through our bodies and so on. Slide. Okay, this gives you an idea of, you know, who's where on the web. And as you can see there are three levels. There's the great goddess in the center because here I'm also I'm also connecting it with women's spirituality which I was getting very involved at that time not only the political actions but also the women's spirituality which is very important to me. So in the center we have the great goddess and then in the first circle there are three circles and three is a sacred number it goes way back, prehistorically and so on. Each circle consists of seven panels seven also is a sacred number so I was getting into sacred numbers. Okay. Slide. Okay, here are the two sides of the web and this is a very large piece that's 45 feet in diameter and I had it transferred here on cloth so it's a double sided piece and connected with red ropes and this was in my backyard I hung it on my backyard you know and you'll see a short clip a short clip about it. Slide. Okay, here are some of the panel details you can probably recognize some of the green and common images that I took in this panel. Slide. This is one panel this is a Seneca Falls panel you can probably recognize some of the images that you just saw from Seneca Falls. Slide. And this is the web from the air a helicopter and I photographed it from a helicopter so that you'd get a feeling of the size of it. There's my mother sitting up there way up there. Okay. Okay, slide. Okay, this is the clip. Their bigness was exciting to me because it's so bold and it was big enough to be tangible. Me putting together the pieces many women and some men helped me with this. This is my mother and my aunt. Both are gone now. There they are. Everybody got into the act. That's my sister. You can only see her hand. That's my aunt's voice. And I'm interested in anything that advances the cost of ideas of feminism. She worked at the UN but women she was very caring. To everybody. We've been struggling for rights for peace for freedom throughout history for a couple of hundred years. Then I became I continued my web work. Next came the three-dimensional webs which I started doing just with rope with some spheres which symbolize the macrocosm and the microcosm and so forth. The web was meant to be an extension of the idea of interconnection with all living things and our need for peace. The three-dimensional web was first installed at Thorpe Gallery in Spark Hill, New York in the fall of 1990. Here's an image of that. Thirty-one women participated in its five-day creation. Approximately one mile of different colored ropes and varied widths, lengths and textures were woven using the wall and ceilings as anchors. The effect on the 127 feet by 34 feet by 14 foot space was both dramatic and inspiring. Ropes were hung from all angles and heights, encouraging the viewer to interact with the piece. So that's the first three-dimensional web slide. And then next came, you know, I did a series after that. I did a series of eight in different parts of the United States and also in Europe. This one is in Rockland Center for the Arts in West Nyec that I did in 1991. Next. This one is I did in Mount Holyoke in 1992 and I used the trees, the outlining trees, whatever, you know, obstacles trees were there. That's what I used. Next. This is in Parco de Villa Tegulio in Rappalo in Italy. Next. And Lausanne in Switzerland. Okay. Now I'd like to talk about my, about some of my work around the theme of Medusa, which to me is connecting my political activism with my women's spirituality concerns. Medusa is an aspect of the great goddess about which I'd like to briefly talk. Okay. This is the first Medusa that I created and I created these, I've done a series of them. This one is called the You Medusa. I'm sure you all know the patriarchal myth of the Medusa, how she was decapitated by Perseus looking into the shield of Athena who had lent the shield so that he wouldn't have to look into her eyes and die. That's the patriarchal myth. But there's a matriarchal overlay. And how do we know that? Because of certain motifs that Medusa has such as her snake hair which bespeak her ancient lineage. Snakes are the terrestrial alter ego of the goddess. This goes back to the Paleolithic. The power of women's eyes. Medusa was supposed to be able to turn men into stone. Okay. The power of women's eyes is considered dangerous in certain societies. Women create life and they can also take it away. The Malocchio in southern Italian culture is a case in point in prevalent many parts of the world as southern Italy or in Turkey. What is the significance of Medusa's power that can turn men into stones? This combines two symbols, the power of her eyes and the fact that she turns men into stones from the Paleolithic monument into stelae which signifies that she has deep association with the death goddess. Okay. Actually, my sister is responsible for my creation of this piece because she came over to walk dogs with me one day and I had just uprooted this U which turns out to be sacred to Hecate and this U was lying in my drive and she said, Chris, this looks just like the Medusa. So 108 hours later I had this piece which, you know, next and I failed to mention it's my face 25 years ago whenever I created it because I created that piece in 1978. Then, okay, I did a black Medusa and here the Medusa is on a wooden base and the power of women glances are staring at the viewer as is the Medusa so they all become Medusas the power of the glance. Next. That's also my face. Next. Okay, then I created another type of Medusa, a laughing a red laughing Medusa and this time I used the face of my daughter and everybody in the piece was laughing. I had, at one point I had a bumper sticker in my car saying she who laughs lasts and I think laughter is a very is a very important political tool so here's some images of people laughing we can go through them very fast. Next. That's my mother laughing. Next. That's my aunt laughing. Next. Me laughing. Next. A person that I met on demonstration laughing. Next. My friend Catherine Allport laughing. Next. And my daughter and here's my daughter I used her face for the laughing Medusa. Next. Okay. Next. Oh and here's the one that I did in 1995 called the raging Medusa and for her face I used I used as inspiration for her face I used Maria Callas hitting a high C in the performance of Bellini's Norma at the Met. Next. Next I'd like to talk about two works which I consider part of my political spiritual work the Gigi sculpture in the Goddess Mount. Next. The Goddess Mount is part of my political spiritual work which is missing value in patriarchal culture which we are in connectedness. The emotional isolation necessary to commit violence is healed by the mound. The part becomes connected to the whole and we are all part of life and thus beloved by the mother by the goddess the ever renewing life force. And right now it is more important than ever before to consider how we're treating the earth our mother. The climate you know you can see the weather lately has been hysterical. Okay so I created this as actually part of my Ph.D. dissertation I created this piece called which I call the Gigi sculpture and it's a it's no longer in existence it's made of papier-mache it was meant to be a model and it was 24 feet by 14 feet wide by 8 feet tall and it was a papier-mache structure with a wire armature inside and inside it was a negative form of a female figure the goddess and you enter through her navel because we're all connected by her navels to our mothers so it took me it took me about 2 months of very very steady work to create this piece with the help of several of you know my contingent my mother my sister my friends and all that next this is the inside and it's difficult to see that the inside is actually the negative form of a female figure that's the maybe we could turn the lights down a little bit okay next okay here you can see kind of that this is the arm this negative female figure is lying down with her legs going inside the earth below her knees so that she doesn't have long legs and she has her arm draped along her side and she's still in a sleeping position okay next okay now we're going to watch a small clip of the GG sculpture taken with an antiquated 1981 camera the great goddess sculpture took 2 months to build with the help of 11 people it is a paper mache structure using a wood and chicken wire armature it measures approximately 23 feet in length and is 12 feet in width and about 7.5 feet high on the outside this work was inspired by the findings of my research on the Maltese and Scottish megalithic structures which are explained in my dissertation images of the great goddess my intention in this sculpture was to literally depict the body of the goddess as a temple to be entered the sculptural thrust of the piece is on internal space the negative shape of a reclining female figure six times life size lying on her side one arm draped along her hip her legs disappearing into the earth below the piece the final column is very difficult to see because this is not a terrific video ok next ok the goddess mound this is the one I would like to build somewhere the sculptural thrust of this piece will be two fold an outside earth mound and an inside negative space of a female figure this time giving birth the exterior earth mound will be approximately 25 feet high quite big and 74 feet in diameter and will be covered with wild grass the inside figure made of some permanent material will be approximately 2 feet high and 14 feet wide all of these measurements are the design of this figure I did with the late architect Mimilo Bell who used to teach Pratt the figure will be in a squatting birth giving position the floor will be 3.5 feet underground and will be entered through a passageway leading from the outside doorway directly into the figure's vagina and we all come from there so you know there's no problem at one point there was a college in the south which almost accepted this piece but as soon as the president actually saw what was involved he quickly called me up and said no I can't have this I'll be crucified on the front lawn the inside will be painted an overall red ochre with swirling black designs and possible pictographs ok slide this is an aerial view and you can see the long passageway inside into the into the sacred precinct which is the inside of a female figure the shape of a mound of the mound is an oval recalling other megalithic monuments in the British Isles and elsewhere the mound's entrance the winter solstice will penetrate deep inside the mound the way does it nougrange the mound's astronomical metaphors are two types the ones that have to do with the moon and the ones that have to do with Venus and all the dimensions have to do with sacred numbers I designed this work with the help of the later architect as I said before if you'd like further details on the goddess mound please go to my website goddessmound.com to see other things both the Gigi and the goddess mound were inspired by Maltese and Scottish temples slide and tombs from the Neolithic period which I studied for my doctoral dissertation which I was awarded in 1981 I believe that the creation of such a structure is very important for now in this era of growing attention to women's place in history I think such a sculpture will renew our thinking about architecture as habitable sculpture with harmony with the environment and about sculpture as a symbolic embodiment of the goddess presence and character which forms an architectural hold with the landscape and is related to human need next other works next just to give you a smattering of things that I've done recently more recently which also are political in nature in the mid-80s I traveled to Nairobi, Kenya and the third world women's international conference there I was inspired to create this piece called 52% because that's what we are we're 52% of the population of the world and all of these images I photographed the center one is a little girl that I met in one of the black spots because I also went to South Africa to witness the apartheid at that point and one of the little girls that were in the black areas black spots where the blacks were confined during the time of apartheid and she represents Lucy or Eve who we all come from next then in 1995 I attended the fourth women's international conference in Beijing and created this sphere which I call the Beijing sphere again I took all the photography of these women and many of them were activists such as this one was an activist from Fiji she was protesting the French involvement in the nuclear stuff in the tests there the one way up there the Indian looking one she was a lesbian from Sri Lanka and she was so happy to be there because we had a wonderful lesbian demonstration in Huayru which the Chinese were very worried about and she was finally able to be completely herself and she was ecstatic and this is an Italian activist and so on and so forth I remember a lot of their stories and lately well in the last in the latest millennia I reacted of course to the 9-11 and this is my piece about 9-11 unfortunately it's not very well photographed it's a very large piece it's 20 foot by a 9 foot collage on cloth and it shows you the whole events of 9-11 and since my partner died at that shortly thereafter I connect 9-11 sort of with her death so here she is disappearing into the sky you know an image of her and then I did this with people which was again it's a large piece 16 feet by 6 feet collage on cloth which reflects all the demonstrations and marches that took place all over the world including Antarctica to try to influence our basic guidance government not to start a war in Iraq so the people come towards you you know visually next and then of course the inevitable war which we're still in I won't even comment beyond that next then in 2004 I had a show at series gallery and I called it Disasters and the first one is the election of 2004 and as you see Bush is depicted in the center it was very difficult to work with this image like the dark dark lord in the Lord of the Rings there's a lot of segregation all around him while he gives his ridiculous grin in his thumbs up sign and where's his idiotic grin all around him like ticker tape are and expanding in sizes they get closer to the edges are copies of email messages that I receive from all over the world in Italian, French and English which are basically my languages after the election saying I'm devastated I couldn't get out of bed and so on and so forth you know and longer messages in Italian and so on as a result of this disastrous election which we're still feeling the results of of course next then I reacted to the tsunami of Southeast Asia and again I used the whatif of hand first of all I was inspired by who you that know Art History, Hokusai's wave which is very famous and this piece is also quite large about 15 feet by 6 or something like that and on one hand are the women who have all lost their children and you know the people in the water and on the other hand these people were saved by this person right here and then there's a famous tortoise and the hippopotamus which some of you probably know the story of the hippopotamus was a baby hippopotamus and this old ancient tortoise and they're still apparently together the next and then the latest the have nots inspired by the events resulting from the hurricane Katrina in New Orleans on the left side you can see the haves leaving because they have cars to leave while the rest of the people the have nots have to endure the frightening destruction of the hurricane in its subsequent aftermath ok then I've come to the end of this as for my writing inspired by my activism I've written three books Habitations of the Great Goddess published in 1995 which examines temples, tombs and dwellings inspired by the great goddess in Malta in Scotland then in the footsteps of the goddess in 2000 which is a compilation of personal stories by women and men of their experiences with a female divine and then the latest one is The Rule of Mars 2006 my publisher is right in the back there which are essays by 32 experts in the field on patriarchy and you know the advent of patriarchy and the effects of patriarchy you know in this world I hope that I've conveyed to you the importance of creating art inspired by activism as a means of reflecting the activism as a means of continuing the activism because we all need to to do that and I've also shown you some of my work inspired by my activism I hope you've enjoyed it thank you so much are there any questions this is one of the camp songs from Seneca Falls questions yes that is usually and it's taught us in Seneca where a universe is simple and that's the only way to interpret people's dreams it's the predatory mother in Gulfman by the mother it has a very very negative advantage but you're using web as connectedness and regeneration as all kinds of good things and it's so necessary to even question the kinds of things that we learn and sort of accept that they really may have some political significance that's only one aspect of the meaning of the interview that can be taught to us at this point thank you very much we all have to always question that's true question authority another very good bumper sticker anybody else yes go ahead yes the female body is unleashed I mean it's not shown as it as a prize where you see people and you see the marks of the that's a very good comment and yet she's preserved I mean and you were depicting it and evoking the suffering but I was wondering about that aspect well she also had that was my partner before Pat she had cancer and there is she does have if you look closely she does have a wound right where Christ was supposed to have his wound so any other questions inspirational I want to mention usually I do a full introduction at the beginning and I had a feeling that the opportunity to hear Christina was going to give us Christina so but for our video I'm just going to read segments of your wonderful biography Christina Viaggi has achieved international recognition for her work and contributions in the field of goddess centered art and her scholarly studies her work is a reflection and an extension of her lifelong interest in the classics art and art history, archeology literature, languages Vassar Harvard, NYU this is a very very good line up when she isn't preparing for new pieces she's writing, lecturing, working with children Shakespeare theater she has mentioned her books to you she's lectured and exhibited throughout the United States in Europe and she continues very evidently to fight for justice in all aspects of her life and in aspects of course of ours her book we have three copies in the back they're signed by Christina they're available for sale the rule of Mars reaching about readings about the origin and impact of patriarchy which I think is really relevant and very connected to today's lecture so thank you very much all of you for coming and thank you very much thank you so much thank you