BASTA.
Ximena, Angela and Lucie suffered sexual violence at the same Geneva office, years apart. To denounce these practices, Ximena first wrote an essay called My MD’s wandering hands, and then contacted me to take their portraits and encourage other women to join the movement. The BASTA. project brings together individual testimonies that can be read like a collective narrative. Based on the protocol of an earlier project I made entitled Invisible Violence, I try to make this violence visible, even if there are no tangible traces of it. The texts, accompanied by pared-down black and white portraits, describe impossible images. The aim of this approach is to remedy the lack of visual representation that contributes to ignorance and tolerance of this systemic violence. Moreover, this work has prompted the Fribourg medical society to redefine their code of conduct and the means of lodging complaints about sexual misconduct.
Exhibition view, Quand les images prennent soin, Commun, Geneva
Genève - 2008
A small, sparsely furnished consulting room in a clinic. The ceilings are high, the walls are painted light yellow. A woman in her forties sits on a medical examination table, her bare legs hang over one side of the table. She is in her underwear, her shoulders are slightly rounded, perhaps it’s cold, she holds her blouse in her hands. A doctor in a white coat stands next to her, his body touches her legs, his stethoscope rests around his neck. The doctor's hands are on the patient's breast, he holds one breast in each hand. He looks at her, a subtle, almost imperceptible smile of triumph on his lips. The woman's gaze is fixed on the floor.
Genève - 1985
A pre-adolescent girl is lying flat on her stomach in an osteopath's surgery. He is standing to her right, wearing gloves. The finger is inserted into the girl's anus. She appears to be having an out of her body experience.
Valais - 2014
A young woman in her twenties is lying on a table that seems better suited to massages than for a medical exam. She is dressed only in a t-shirt that barely covers her breasts, her legs are bent. A doctor is leaning against her knees. He is holding her wrist firmly with one hand and inserting his fingers into her vagina with the other. Tears stream down the young woman's cheeks. The man's penis is erect.
Ferney-Voltaire - 2015
In a practice, a woman in her thirties wearing only panties is being massaged by a man. He massages her stomach with one hand, while with the other he inserts his fingers into her vagina. The woman appears to be in shock, drugged, and having an out of her body experience.
Pully - 1995
A young teenager of about fifteen is sitting on a consultation table. A man is clinging to her leg and seems to rub himself against her. The teenage-girl appears scared stiff, unable to move.
Genève - 2019
A young woman in her twenties sits on a consultation table. She is looking down at her bare legs, holding her dress firmly against her chest, as if trying to cover herself as much as possible. A man in a white coat is undoing her bra, the patient looks surprised, one would say she had not been asked.