INDOMITES

Everything that bends surrenders or humbles itself. So get a grip on yourself.

Chantal Maillard [1]

The RAE defines as indomitable, ta. (from the Latin, indomĭtus) one who cannot or will not be tamed. "Amaestrar", which in French is translated as élever, literally means "to elevate". The verb is also used in the sense of "to educate", but in both cases it is a matter of elevating the supposedly inferior, argues Chantal Maillard [2]. If the natural is that which cannot be controlled, the domestic, as Jana Leo states, "does not refer to the space that belongs to us, but to the one we belong to; it is not the space of our dominion, but the one that dominates us but over which we have some control: we know how it operates, that it is regulated and that it has times, repetitions and rhythms" [3]. Indomitable is, therefore, the person who resists the process of domestication, including the whole repertoire of normalized behaviors that such a regime brings with it.

This series of photographs shows women from different backgrounds, portrayed in broad daylight in various natural locations on the island of Ibiza, on the other side of the fence, where those who rebel against the different forms of colonisation are situated. Each image contains a story labelled with their names. Isa Sanz presents a collection of registers in which these women, with no other attributes than their mere presence, appear full-length, always in a hidden but open setting, bare-chested - an expression of freedom -, unafraid to show their vulnerability. They are direct portraits, with natural light, without artifice. Their pose is confident, straight ahead. Their gaze is firm, direct. They are neither complacent nor docile, perhaps because they have managed to preserve the thread that connects them with their wild side. Their genealogy goes back to Lilith, Kali, Boudica, Sycorax, as well as a long line of witches and female subjects, mythical or real, who did not bow to patriarchal domination or its disciplinary methods.

Taking on women's political violence, as these portraits suggest, involves challenging social and cultural constructions of sex/gender, populated by myths and stereotypes, such as the masculine mystique of violence or the old statement that women are naturally peaceful, which have only served to perpetuate a subordinate position [4].

In the face of capitalist logic, built on the exploitation of women and nature, the myth of the good savage, implicitly pointed out in this series, is presented as an archetype of the psyche that resides in inner strength and in the capacity of subjectivity itself to assert vital force, self-esteem and freedom. Alicia H. Puleo points out in this sense that the good contemporary savages constitute "a critical dossier with delegitimising functions of the western techno-scientific complex" [5], offering a civilising alternative uncontaminated by patriarchal culture, for which any essentialism must be discarded.

Despite being invested with relations of power, according to Foucauldian thought, the body is a "multilingual" being [6]. Isa Sanz's indomitable women are deeply connected to it, as they are to the nature that supports and shelters them. Insubmissive, combative, lucid and conscious, they present themselves without armour, enjoying the fact of knowing that they are naked, calm, learning non-fear and freely affirming their non-identity. They are standing, erect women who subvert both normative femininity and the model of representation that has dominated the great narrative of the History of Art, by repeating ad infinitum that iconographic typology aptly defined as the "phenomenon of the reclining woman" [7].

This is not the first time that this artist has turned her attention to other women. The practice of affidamento or sorority is a constant in her way of proceeding, so that each project always involves a process of exchange, complicity and mutual trust, as she showed in "Vision Seekers", "Alma Máter", "The goddesses in you" or "I bleed, but I don't die". Isa Sanz portrays people she knows and portrays herself with them because together they weave the warp. Nature lends itself as a host for the encounter, constructing itself as a field of crossed energies.

All the photographs that form the backbone of the series share a number of common notes; however, each of these women has her own resonance. The author returns the attention to the singular to present them in the first person, knowing that it is not easy to recount the similar. Firmly grounded in space, the indomitable women are present with their whole being, the centre of their own narrative, loyal to themselves, masters of their actions and their jouissance. They are their own altar. They know their shadow, but also their light. They are the ones who look, so there is no voyeuristic gaze. What is significant here is recognition which, to return to the RAE, is the action and effect of recognising or recognising oneself.

Marta Mantecón. Art Historian.

[1] Chantal Maillard: La mujer de pie. Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2015.

[2] Ibid. p. 70.

[3] Jana Leo de Blas: El viaje sin distancia. Perversiones del tiempo, el espacio y el dinero ante el límite en la cultura contemporánea. CENDEAC, Murcia, 2006. p. 276.

[4] "The struggle for citizenship is based on the idea that women are political beings, not natural beings". Cf. María Xosé Agra Romero: "Con armas, como armas: la violencia de las mujeres". Isegoría. Revista de Filosofía Moral y Política, nº 46, January-June 2012. p. 52.

[5] Alicia H. Puleo: "Madre-Naturaleza y la buena salvaje en la crítica ecológica e indigenista", in Feminismo y Multiculturalismo. Instituto de la Mujer, Madrid, 2007. pp. 234.

[6] Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Women who run with the wolves. Ediciones B, Barcelona, 2001. p. 163.

[7] "With this expression I allude to the proliferation of female figures that resemble each other in their air of nonchalance, which clearly imprints the body lying down, lying down, lying down, lying down, or immersed in the molicie for the enjoyment of the author of the work and, it is assumed, also of the spectator". Cf. Juan Vicente Aliaga: Orden fálico. Androcentrismo y violencia de género en las prácticas artísticas del siglo XX. Akal, Madrid, 2007. p. 29.