Ciudad Real.- The subdelegate of the Government in the province of Ciudad Real, M. Ángeles Herreros, inaugurates the exhibition ‘8M_Yuxtaponer’ by the Valdepeñera photographer Ana Santos, in the Prison Center of Herrera de la Mancha, an activity that is part of the events organized on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
The General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions also intends, with this type of activity, to bring together equality and culture, thus transferring detention centres and promoting penitentiary treatment, the main objective of which is to achieve the inclusion in society of those persons who serve a custodial sentence.
The work represents a dialogue of geometric and organic forms, in which the woman’s body is the essential axis, trying to reclaim the space occupied by women. It is a series of 25 photographs of women isolated in geometric spaces, questioning stereotypes, the environment they occupy and the way they relate to themselves and to others.
In the words of the author, Ana Santos, “I try to invite the questioning of those cultural and moral structures that resist abandoning their status, trying to pay homage to femininity and all the polarities that make up the reality of women in today’s reality, including the fear of showing up, hiding to go unnoticed.”
The exhibition includes a selection of images made by Santos in the Destiny Gates Foundation Kenya work camp where Masai women are dedicated to rescuing girls who have suffered genital mutilation and had early marriages. Ana Santos has portrayed the work of this NGO that seeks to empower women by teaching them basic skills in literacy, reading and writing, clothing, crafts and baking.
The exhibition can be seen from the 6th to the 12th of March in the penitentiary facilities of Herrera de la Mancha.
Subdelegate Herreros pointed out “it is very important that the inmates who spend the days in this penitentiary center and who also reflect on the reasons that have brought them here, can see with this exhibition full of symbolism, claim and transgression that we can talk about equality from many points of view, also from art”
In addition to the subdelegate, the director of the penitentiary center, Marceliano García-Catalán, officials of the penitentiary administration, inmates and the photographer herself, Ana Santos, took part in the inauguration.