Caring Kind: Exploring Gender-based Violence Through Artworks by Women from or based in Turkey between 1980–2020

Abstract

Art opens new pathways for novel modes of engagement with feminism and the related history of theory, writing, and activism through transdisciplinary approaches. One pathway is the reflection of gender-based violence in artworks. This paper follows the traces of the patriarchal mindset and its reflections in various forms of gender-based violence in selected artworks of women artists based in or from Turkey between 1980 and 2020. This study has a specific focus on artists whose works are autobiographical, and who shift between experimental writing and visual art in their works. The resources for this study include artist interviews, artist books, Turkish art history literature that deal with the 1980–2020 period, archival material from artists, news articles, exhibition catalogues, art periodicals, as well as international literature on art writing as a feministic practice. Findings of this study indicate that art has the power of fore fronting, awareness raising, reframing, and thus transforming existing knowledge and commonly held beliefs concerning gender in a society through its various forms of expression.