Gloria Oyarzabal

Gender categories gradually became institutionalised in various African cultures during the sundry periods of European colonialism. The Spanish artist Gloria Oyarzabal is publishing her book Woman Go No’Gree in tune with Festival Images Vevey. She focuses on a particular ethnic group – the Yoruba people – and notes that there is signicant religious and linguistic evidence to prove that their original society was not gendered : prior to colonisation, social practices were ordered according to lineage and age. Her book presents a captivating combination of archival documents and her own images, as well as an essay based on her research. The project questions how to apply the notions of gender that are specific to Western feminism and supposedly universal, to cultures with fundamentally different traditions and ways of functioning.