SPEAKER_02: Before we start, just want to give a warning that this episode contains mentions of violence and bodily harm. Hello. From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. This month, we're highlighting ragers, women who use their anger, often righteous, though not always, to accomplish extraordinary things. Today we're talking about an artist who channeled her anger and political criticism into art as an act of will, pushing against an oppressive world. Let's talk about Leticia Parente. Leticia Parente was born in 1930 in Salvador, Brazil. We don't know much about her upbringing. We do know that she studied chemistry, got a PhD, and became a professor. That she became a wife and eventually a mother of five children. And that amidst the backdrop of a repressive dictatorship in Brazil, she became an artist. On April 1, 1964, the Brazilian military overthrew the government of leftist president João Golar. They installed an authoritarian and patriarchal regime that lasted 21 years. This was a violent time, and there was systematic repression and mass torture of dissidents. A strong social and cultural opposition rose up against this regime and its violence. That included artists and intellectuals, some of whom Leticia met in the 1970s. By then, she'd moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she met a group of artists pioneering video art and holding workshops at the Museum of Modern Art. Portable video cameras were a new technology and hard to find in Brazil. So video art was only just starting to take off. The artists presented experimental work, often to small audiences and at museums. The work expressed what they were living through—pain, loss, and limited agency. Leticia was 45 years old when she made her first videos. She recorded the two-minute black-and-white video called In at her home. The first shot shows Leticia's legs as she opens two white closet doors. The camera pans out and she steps inside. She turns around. She's wearing white pants and a turtleneck, despite the humid Brazilian climate. Leticia proceeds to hang up her turtleneck on a white hanger without taking it off. It's an awkward yet deliberate act. She looks uncomfortable and like she might suffocate standing there, attached to the rod through this hanger. She closes the closet doors. According to the art historian Paulina Pardo Gaviria, with this piece Leticia was alluding to the limitations of her movement in a life controlled and censored by the government. Paulina wrote that the video also shows a duality, quote, of the house as both a metaphor for the constriction of women and a space in which women are able to enact their own will. A similar tension takes place in Leticia's most well-known piece, Marca Registrada. In it, she carefully and deliberately stitches string through the skin on the bottom of her foot. Slowly, letter by letter, she inscribes the words, Made in Brazil. It's hard to watch. And with this piece, Leticia used her body to express a complicated truth, the kind of owning up to where she's from and the discomfort that comes with it. In 1975, when Leticia made these video pieces, Brazil was ten years into the military dictatorship. The government was sponsoring glossy media advertisements to improve its image, both domestically and abroad. And that's something Leticia used in Marca Registrada, echoing that nationalistic pride. By doing so, she called attention to the painful reality behind it. Self-mutilation a metaphor for the state-sanctioned torture. Leticia went on to create art for the rest of her life, through video and on paper. She was selected for international museum exhibitions and won awards. She died in 1991 at the age of 61. All month long, we're talking about ragers. For more information, check us out on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. As always, we'll be taking a break for the weekend. Talk to you on Monday.
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