Beautiful Strength: Sobrevivir Pays Homage to the Women

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At a time when women's rights to their own bodies are hotly contested, a new art installation at an open courtyard in the Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center seems even more urgent. "Sobrevivir (Survival)" by artist Phung Huynh is a massive Corten steel disk art installation made of 21 panels, each weighing about 300 lbs. Together, the panels make up a monumental disk 21 feet in diameter, etched with an image of La Virgen de Guadalupe's praying hands at the center. Around La Virgen's hands are gracefully curving leaves and roses. Beautiful and weathered, it is a testament to the gravity of tragedies that happened decades past and continuing tumult around women's bodies today.To get more news about 日本xxxx色视频在线观看免费, you can visit our official website.

The sculptural piece is a physical expression of Los Angeles County's apologies to the women and families harmed by its coercive sterilization practices between the 1960s and '70s. It also remembers the courage of the ten working-class Mexican American women who filed a class-action civil rights suit against the LAC + USC Medical Center, alleging its doctors and nurses at the hospital used deceptive means to get them to sign consent forms for sterilization. Their case would be known as Madrigal v. Quilligan and would help shape the fail safes in maternal healthcare many families know today.

"LAC + USC Medical Center is a hospital that is so important to our community. We serve the most vulnerable people in Los Angeles. With that comes a lot of responsibility and accountability to our community," said Jorge Orozco, Chief Executive Officer at LAC + USC. "It's never been more important to support the creation of an equitable health care system in L.A. and this really includes reckoning with our past."
According to Huynh, the installation was partly inspired by a gorgeous pair of vintage leather-tooled boots, which she happened upon at a South Pasadena vintage shop while researching the events at LAC + USC hospital. The installation at the hospital is muscular and heavy in dimension, but its graceful lines also impart softness and elegance — a study of contrasts, much like the mothers of the Madrigal v. Quilligan case.

"It had everything in it, those shoes," said Huynh. "It's beautiful. It's strong. I wondered, 'Who walked in those shoes? Who were these women?' Leather was so symbolic of skin, of transforming suffering and scarring. The beautiful patterns and details of flora and flowers — I think flowers are very symbolic of women and fertility and also like an offering of apologies to the mothers."

The design's floral and graceful curves also took cues from the patterns of the Mexican garment huipil. "The huipil also functioned as a form of resistance. Even after colonization, Indigenous Mexican women continued to use it," said Huynh.

While the Corten steel disk is certainly a centerpiece of the installation, Huynh's work does not end there. Lights beneath the sculptural piece illuminate a small seating area surrounded by words inspired by those of the bereaved mothers — not direct quotes, but a kind of "collective poem," said Huynh.