Extra Credit: La Revuelta

After witnessing La Revuelta’s performance entitled Manifesto Armado, I was struck by the symbolic power of the cutting imagery. Specifically, I was inspired by the performer’s declaration, “When I cut I move. When I move I grow,” which celebrates the beauty and strength found in releasing pain and overwhelming negativity. This theme is so profound as it identifies the fulfillment in emptying oppressive ideas of credibility. It also suggests that there is greater inclusion to be found through excluding prejudice, shame, and doubt. The sound and force the performers make as they use the knives to figuratively cut oppression is very powerful. The sensory quality of the performance reflects the potential power of this activist method. Another interesting idea was presented during the reflective discussion. They offer the valid argument that an art history written by men is not a true history of art at all, which is notably embedded within the piece. They wish to cut out the feelings and powers that exclude women from resistance and active change-making. The women further the artistic theme of inclusion by committing themselves to inviting and uplifting unheard female voices. Notably, this theme is mirrored within the collective’s official manifesto. Specifically, it inspires the group’s mission to find spaces and dialogue that tell the history of art from a gendered perspective. Therefore, by cutting out masculinist productions of knowledge, they invite a network of female artists to have their voices heard. They refuse to hold onto this patriarchal mode of knowing and shed light on the work of women now, then, and tomorrow. The cutting is then a way of allowing women to freely reach out for each other and offer support. This informed the group's artistic cutting of fruits labeled with feelings such as “culpa” or guilt, thus shedding certain emotional weight and cutting out certain falsehoods so that women can begin to heal personally and communally. Overall, I was in awe of their performance art and its radical upholding of inclusion.