Save the Last Dance for Me

Knitted Photographs

In "Save the Last Dance for Me" the motivation to reproduce objects suggestive of the female body was prompted by the news of the Darfur Genocide, especially with reference to the mass slaughter and rape of Darfuri women and children in Western Sudan. The killings began in 2003 and was the first genocide in the 21st century.
Moreover, the Darfur genocide, an appalling, brutal and systematic attack against humanity seemed to evade the attentive eye of the international media, and the suffering of the Darfurian people was felt as a distant echo in the West. The artwork "Save the Last Dance for Me' could be seen as a reminder of the lost opportunities to take action and stand against this atrocity. 

In this artwork I have knitted together images of Darfurian girls and women cultivating farmlands or seeking water and firewood with their traumatic stories of mass rape and violence.

With this artwork I draw attention to the fact that rape and sexual abuse are not just a by-product of war but are used as weapons of war, as an orchestrated combat tool often used in ethnic conflicts as a way for attackers to perpetuate their social control and redraw ethnic boundaries.  Read more