Anna Laura Juarez
screenprint on handmade paper
"¿Y Qué? (So What?) is one of the self portraits I created during the Women’s Art Institute Summer Studio Intensive course.
I explored the use of my body to challenge cultural taboos about women and pleasure, as a response to feeling preyed on in public by men and the sexual lens they carry.
My decision to create a pattern and pair it with my body was influenced by my visit to Hend Al Mansour’s studio, a WAI alumna. Her use of Arabic and Islamic pattern to address gender politics in the Arab world encouraged me to look at my cultural heritage to guide my design. The recurring images of plant life, fish and water in my pattern are directly sourced from my research of the pottery created by artists in my mother’s home state, Michoacán, Mexico.”