400 Women

Femicide is perhaps not the most attractive topic for an art exhibition, but then neither is it an acceptable crime. However, due to the continued ineptitude of the authorities in Juárez, Mexico, the count of local women who have been abducted, raped and murdered before being dumped like trash is continuing to rise above 400. The sense of public panic seems low as Juárez is already a violent city and both the police and media are suggesting—wrongly—that the victims were involved in drugs or prostitution, as if that would mean they asked for it. Yet if this sort of thing occurred in an American or European city, we’d be begging for justice to be served and there would be an inquiry into the handling of each case. Determined to commemorate these lost women, Tamsyn Challenger enlisted almost 200 of her fellow artists to create a visual tribute to each victim which is being toured around the world. Will creativity be the tool to bring justice for Juárez?