Sculpture Exhibit Honors Survivors, Victims of Gender-Based Violence

A new contemporary sculpture exhibit hosted by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center will honor the strength of women who have experienced domestic or sexual violence.

“Marta Pérez García: Bearing Witness” sheds particular light on survivors in Puerto Rico, where the artist is from. It opens in the H.J. Patterson Hall atrium on Sept. 15, the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, with a 4 p.m. opening reception as part of NextNOW Fest. It will also include a drop-in papermaking workshop from 1 to 4 p.m. Additional community events will be held with the Hyattsville Branch Library and the UMD Safe Center. 

The D.C.-based artist began her series of sculptural female torsos, Restos-Traces, in response to the escalation of domestic violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic. She constructed them from handmade paper and inlaid them with various materials, including metal wires, bones and nails. 

“I think our survival stories are written on our bodies,” Pérez García has said, and her torsos betray the psychic and physical scars of violence with intimacy and poignance. 

Her work is represented in the collections of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, the Phillips Collection and the Library of Congress.

The UMD exhibit is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. Co-sponsors include the Indigenous Futures Lab; the Pepsi Enhancement Fund; Arts for All; the Department of Spanish and Portuguese; the Department of Art History and Archeology; the Department of American Studies; the Department of Art; the UMD Art Gallery; CARE to Stop Violence; MICA; Stamp Art Gallery; Studio A; and the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.