S.at the Venice Film Festival for the spectators of Zapatos Rojos /Red Shoesdirected by Carlos Kaiser Eichelmann and competing in the section Extra Horizons. 33 pairs of red shoes awaited them in the Sala Giardino: an installation by Elina Chauvet, the Mexican artist. Yes, because we now take this universal symbol of the battle against femicides for granted, which instead has a precise place and date of birth: Ciudad Juárez (Mexico), 2009.
“In memory of my sister”
“The inspiration came from a very hard and very personal experience: the murder of my sister by her partner, in 1992, right in this city on the border with Texas. Her name was Julia, it’s the first time I’ve revealed her name: I think the time has come. You have to give a name to everything to heal the wounds “she explains – moving – Elina Chauvet, who arrived at the Lido to support Kaiser Eichelmann’s film which tackles the theme of femicide from an unprecedented perspective: that of the father of a victim (the actor Eustacio Ascacio), who suffers from the disappearance of his daughter, but also from his own sense of guilt, his own regrets.
The installation on the Lido of Venice in front of the Sala Giardino.
Channel the pain
«It took many years for me to be able to cure my pain through art, to ‘channel it’. For a long time painting was a therapy, in particular: I painted scenes of violence, drug trafficking, then I began to portray my sister. But seeing that these patriarchal violence in Ciudad Juárez did not diminish, on the contrary, in 2009 I felt that I had to do something else to denounce, and that it had to be a worldwide denunciation because the drama is global and it concerns everyone, I wanted it to be a collective work that would bring awareness. No one reported the domestic mistreatment. We artists are dreamers, we hope to change the world by making society reflect… »he smiles.
Elina Chauvet with director Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser.
The color of blood
Why shoes? The reason for the red is clear, the color of the blood …
«Not only that: the color of love! When my sister and I were little, you left the cinema after seeing The Wizard of Oz, we insisted on having a pair of red shoes like Dorothy. We were so happy! And, once we grew up, we continued to exchange the various pairs… Shoes are something intimate, which can tell your story and, unfortunately, on several occasions they have also allowed the identification of the corpses in Ciudad Juárez. But I do not hide a practical reason: I had no funds to create a work of this magnitude, there was a need for it to become participatory and, therefore, to have at its center an object that people could donate anywhere “.
It all started with 33 pairs of shoes donated by the families of the victims of Ciudad, the installation passed through several Mexican cities with the collaboration of Norma Andrade, founder of a non-profit association of mothers of victims of femicide in Milan thanks to the curator Francesca Guerisoli in 2012. And continuing in Argentina, and many other countries: by now it has been replicated about 500 times in the world. Today in Mexico she joined the school curriculum (“Which excites me so much”).
A scene from “Zapatos Rojos”.
The most coveted award
Elina Chauvet comes from a land of truly free-spirited painters: Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo… “I appreciate them but they weren’t my role models. It was my personal experience that put me on this path. I studied architecture because there were no other artistic faculties in Ciudad Juárez »says she, who has lived in Sinaloa since 2000 and has left painting, devoting herself to other forms of art, with other materials.
There is an Italian conductor, Speranza Scappucci, who wears red shoes when she is on the podium. “Oh yes? I did not know! How beautiful »and her face lights up. “Here, this is the most important recognition I could aspire to. The hope is what we women have, that everything can change ».
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