Tatiana Garmendia – The Book of Hours

In the Book of Hours series, I am thinking of numbers in various ways. Originally, a book of hours was a spiritual organizing principle that divided the day not canonical hours/time periods, for spiritual reflection, prayers, meditations. So I am seeing numbers in this mythic sense as divisions of time, sacramental spaces in which the mundane and extramundane meet.

Numbers more importantly serve as an accounting in this series. Keeping track of criminal injustices, I appropriate the devotional language of illuminated manuscripts for a secular critique of violence against women. I approach this subject as a survivor, with intense desire to change hearts and minds through my art. At the core of this series is the ritualized act of counting. Counting not prayer beads in a rosary, but female victims in specific townships during set time periods.

Each piece depicts a female dancer whose body wrestles with cultural values prescribed to the genders as it is cut from a Christ or martyred saint. The afflicted female body is also directly referenced by the act of counting, each dot declaring that every woman matters.

Find Tatiana here: www.tatianagarmendia.com