The latest art exhibition at UCSD aims to sensitize people to the pain, violence and oppression that afflict women through art that enables the viewer to empathize with feeling vulnerable, violated or deliberately masking pain – rather than zeroing in on the act of violence itself. Artist Yoko Ono, for example, created a video called “Cut Piece” in which she’s sitting on a stage allowing people to take scissors and snip a piece of her dress, like vultures stripping her bare. Some cutters seem to simply want a square of her dress as a souvenir, while another cutter takes the opportunity to snip her dress at the strap causing the front of her dress to fall and expose her. Called “Off The Beaten Path: Violence, Women and Art,” the exhibition features 21 artists and organizations from 19 countries and is being held through Dec. 12 at the University Art Gallery on the west end of the Mandeville Center at UCSD. The exhibition can also be found online at artworksforchange.org. “We’ve become desensitized to violence,” curator Randy Rosenberg said. “It’s on TV; it’s all around us; we hear about these horrific acts of violence but somehow we have managed to protect ourselves from feeling it… There’s an element of storytelling [in the exhibit], whether it’s more abstract or concrete, and we’re hoping somehow it will touch people so they will let themselves feel and understand for people who do experience some abuse.” The exhibition is divided into five themes, chronicling abuse at the individual level as well as in the family, community, culture and politics. Artist Gabriela Morawetz created a haunting portrayal of the bed, which for many is a symbol of rejuvenation and the dream world, but for others is a place of violation and vulnerability. In one image, the bed shows a stark frame and a mattress piled high with fragile glass balls. The art and its accompanying text is far more thought-provoking than simulating images of rape and domestic violence. “I wasn’t as interested in the shock value, and in some ways that feels equally disturbing – it’s like more of the same in terms of horror of violence,” Rosenberg said. “It’s like creating more violence.” Some pieces portray a more positive outlook, such as Miwa Yanagi’s project in which she asked young girls to describe themselves 50 years from now and then photographed those girls in that scenario using makeup and digital tactics to age the participants. The girls projected themselves as mature women of stature enjoying power, respect and adventure, refuting the negative connotations of older women as crones, useless and past their prime. Relating myriad experience A handful of people sat riveted on a Saturday evening in November listening to a panel of five activists speak about their experiences and work to reverse the culture of violence and oppression against women that pervades places like Sudan, Iran, Iraq and India. The Nov. 14 lecture at UCSD corresponded with the recent exhibition at the University Art Gallery. The panelists were frank about their personal experiences. Dep Tuany arrived in America in 1991 after living in a refugee camp for 12 years and losing his son to water-borne disease. Tuany showed two photos of a victim of cultural violence. In one, a young, fair woman stared solemnly at the camera, dressed in a fashionable sweater, wearing earrings and jewelry with her uncovered hair slicked back into a ponytail. She was 20 years old and attending college. In the adjacent photo, the woman’s face is severely burnt and disfigured with one eye bulging out and the other one gone. The young woman’s family had married her off to a 40-year-old man whom she did not love. After refusing intercourse with him, her husband sent her home but she was returned to her husband. The husband bought a chemical and asked his brother-in-law to perform a “ritual” over the woman to cure her objections to intercourse. He poured the chemical over his sister and burnt her face badly. Tuany said economics plays a heavy role in the continued oppression of women since families welcome the dowry the man brings. In 1995, Tuany founded the Southern Sudanese Community Center in San Diego to support other refugees. Panelist Cima Rahmankhah was born shortly before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and has lived her entire life under a regime that forced women to split their identities between their home and public lives. Rahmankhah showed a silent video of a woman reading at home, wiggling her brightly painted toes, and then wiping off her plum lipstick and dressing in a burka to cover her hair, feet and banned literature to face the outside world. The women are monitored carefully for make-up, which may be wiped off with broken glass in the streets, reported Farrah Douglas, the first female to publish a novel in Iran who was evacuated in 1979. Douglas runs a printing company, CDS Printing, in Carlsbad and is the president of 5 Women Who Care. She is president of the Carlsbad Rotary Foundation Board and the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, as well as serving on numerous civic boards. UCSD is located at 9500 Gilman Drive. For information, visit artworksforchange.org.