Emancipated bodies: interspecies approaches between women and animals in painting and performance
Performance, painting, interseccional feminism, decoloniality, anti-speciesism.
Adopting an feminist, intersectional, decolonial, and anti-speciesist approach grounded in process-based critique, this research takes as its starting point works created by potiguar artist Geovana Grunauer between 2020 and 2025, with the aim of deepening the theoretical dimensions of an ongoing artistic work. According to a five-year period, this research examines pages from artist’s book, sketchbooks, paintings and performances already done, investigating the link that connects creations across time. The research engages primarily with the authors Lerner (2019) and hooks (2019) regarding the subjugation relations that prefigures women’s socialization, which connects to sexist oppression, the ground to all others oppressions. This writing also brings the antipatriarchal, antiracist and non-anthropocentric thoughts of the sisters A. Ko & S. Ko (2025), adding the philosophical animal rights approach of Francione (2008) too. In order to the critical developments emerged, the artist proposes new works on painting and performance, aiming to establish interspecies connections between woman and animal, aligned to an non-anthropocentric perspective. In this way, the project reflects on the creative markers and choices made throughout these artistic processes, while seeking to expand the political territories already activated by the work, rubbing simultaneously further the issues engaging to otherness questions involved in this relationship.