I Am Unbeatable is the tireless continuation of Donna Ferrato’s Living With The Enemy, a project on domestic violence, first published by Aperture in 1991. Ferrato is an emotional force, moulded in emotional freedom and creative independency. She is dedicated body and soul to the plight of women, though that doesn’t make her a typical feminist.
At the Look 3 festival in 2012, she spoke openly about her unbridled sexuality, of which she has created a visual body of work that is passionate before being erotic. When she photographs an orgy, it is never voyeuristic but it becomes an ode to the liberated, consensual relations that are also at the heart of her fight against domestic violence. “From pleasure to pain,” wrote James Estrin three years ago in The New York Times, speaking of Ferrato’s work.
She captures scenes of violence with the same impossible intimacy, dissecting the raw fear and anger of her subjects. In her striking pamphlet, Ferrato attempts to decipher male psychology but, most of all, she portrays women in a moment that supersedes the present and offers a glimpse of their possible futures. As Pedro A.H. Paixão, guest editor of the latest issue of New Observations, subtly puts it: the power of her photographs is their prophetic character. (The magazine published a moving essay by Isabella Rodriguez to accompany Ferrato’s photographs.) In the tears that darken Janice’s cheeks shines the light of the day she will be freed from living under constant threat. Ruth, her face bruised and swollen, stands outside, her eyes heavy but determined, like those of Sarah, who became in 2012, “finally free of abuse.”
Perhaps Ferrato’s most iconic photograph is one of her first, dated 1982. Garth slaps Lisa hard across the face and Ferrato is only a few feet away – we see her reflection in the mirror that fractures the scene. The image has endured for its incredible proximity, but probably also because the photographer’s approach lies in that mirror effect, in the positivity she reflects onto the victims and others like them.
EXHIBITION
Septembre 12 – December 4, 2014
Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery
Cohen Memorial Hall, Peabody Campus,
1220 21st Avenue South
Nashville, Tennessee
www.vanderbilt.edu/gallery
http://donnaferrato.com
http://www.iamunbeatable.com
http://newobs.org
