SHOW TRIAL PUSSY RIOT - SALEM

PUSSY RIOT SHOW TRIAL - SALEM

This collage is an adaptation of a work by Yoko Ono: FROM MY WINDOW -SALEM 1692

From her window overlooking the city of New York, and through time, the artist superimposes and merges portraits of herself in childhood and youth with the trial of a young woman accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692. Yoko Ono dedicate this work to the over five million pagan women doctors and intellectuals who, accused of being witches, were stoned, drowned, staked and burnt, to die in humiliation.

There is also a song she wrote that inspired this collage:

WOMAN OF SALEM

1692, six in the morning of June,

Sally Kegley, age thirty-four,

Closed her diary she'd kept for two scores.

 

 

Salem, Salem, witches must be hung.

 

 

Let my daughter burn my book,

Let her learn to sew and cook.

Teach her not to read but weave,

Ask her not to speak but weep.

 

 

Salem, Salem, witches must be hung.

 

 

Sally Kegley knows how to cure the ill,

Sally Kegley sees through us at will.

 

 

Salem, Salem, witches must be hung.

 

 

All the town's people rushing to the hill,

Their eyes shining, ready for the kill.

Sally's flesh bound to the cross,

Her eyes searching for the ones who are close.

 

 

Oh, why? oh, why? oh, why? oh, why?

Oh, why? why? why? why? why? why? why?

Help! help! help! help!

Help! help! help! help!

Must kill, must hang, must kill, must hang,

Must kill, must hang, must kill, must hang,

Must kill, must hang, must kill, must hang,

Must kill, must hang...

I did this collage after seeing the HBO documentary "PUSSY RIOT - A PUNK PRAYER". I thought there was a kind of relationship between those witches trials in Salem in 1692 and this "show trial" against Pussy Riot girls that was the first in a string of pseudo-legal proceedings meant to punish the opposition and teach the public a lesson. After Pussy Riot many opposition leaders have been prosecuted and many demonstrators against Putin's politics have been arrested.

SHOW TRIALS are the ones that exists only to justify punishment. They are a perfomance rather than a judgment. Luckily in the last politically motivated trials in Russia there have been plenty of loud, dissenting voices, both inside and outside the courtroom.

In the trial Pussy Riot's defendants were accused not only of blasphemy but of witchcraft; not only of insincerity but of demonic possession.

One witness testified: "Those who are possessed can exhibit different behaviors. They can scream, beat their heads against the floor, jump up and down..."

Another witness testified : "This was not a performance. It was witches' ritual... I do not accept their apology. It is insincere and intended for the court. A sincere apology would mean admitting responsibility for the schism, donning fetters and joining a convent."

There is a fact very little known about that performance Pussy Riot made in the cathedral:

The performance took place on the first day of Maslenitsa, once a carnival period during which mockery of church authorities and other forms of indecent behavior were permitted. By covering their faces and wearing motley costumes, Pussy Riot evoked the "skomorokhi", medieval jesters who sang, danced and spoke truth to power. The " skomorokhi" were often accused of being irreverent or even diabolical but they were tolerated for centuries. Maybe because they were men?

 

Contact: wanderwatersworks@gmail.com

 

 

Done