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From the Facebook account of the Brazilian artist Juliana Notari
SAO PAOLO, Brazil – A huge bright red vagina sculpture on a mountain in northeastern Brazil is meant to inspire intercourse, not the sexual kind but a dialogue about gender issues, particularly poignant under the conservative government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
Artist Juliana Notari created the 33-meter (108-foot) vulva, titled “Diva,” with the help of more than 20 people, who excavated a rural sugarcane field in Pernambuco state to make a crack that, according to she, too, resembles “a wound.”
“In ‘Diva’ I use art to engage with questions that refer to gender issues from a female perspective,” Notari said on Facebook.
The six-meter-deep, cement-lined excavation took nearly 11 months to complete, but touches on issues “that are becoming increasingly urgent,” Notari said.
Brazil is going through a wave of ultra-conservatism that brought Bolsonaro to power in 2019 and has created a polarized debate on gender issues, including on hot topics like abortion.
Since 2003, Notari has been “working with the female anatomy and seeks to provoke discussions about sexual taboos imposed on women,” the official material on the sculpture said.
“It is also a wound,” Notari said of the sculpture.
The work has been the subject of ridicule and criticism, with one Facebook user posting that “if it was 15 minutes of fame he wanted, he got it,” while others have applauded the artist’s ability to create space for reflection.
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