by Nadija Mustapić
2021-ongoing

Pilot audio/video installation
Video (2K, vertical format, 45 min, color, stereo sound)

This edition of my larger project Superheroines was a pilot made during a week-long residency Mittendrin in November 2021 in Graz where I interviewed and filmed women of different profession, age and background who live and work in Graz, Austria.

Based on this edition, another version is being produced in Rijeka, Croatia, in collaboration with a vast number of women who participated giving their testimonies about their experiences of Corona crisis.

Project outline:
Women worldwide took the toll of the pandemic and have been carrying the crisis in so many ways. They make up for majority of the health care and education workforce, exposing them to a greater risk of infection. At the same time, women are also carrying a lot of the burden at home, since school and childcare facility closures and longstanding gender inequalities in unpaid work. Women also face high risks of job and income loss, and face increased risks of violence, exploitation, abuse or harassment during times of crisis and quarantine. 

They are tired and angry, they have lost the ability to have a choice, they supervise the home-learning of their children, they cook, clean and do all the domestic work while husbands work, they take care of family members with special needs, on daily bases they transform their homes into environments that fulfil all important needs and serve all contents that household members require, making homes safe zones for all their daily routines. But not all homes are safe, and women are facing violent discharges of household members due to crisis tension. They altogether carry out more work than men, face more risks or losing jobs or not being able to get back into the work market, and suffer more than before from the raise of abuse, exploitation and harassment. All that while being portrayed in media as Superheroines who can take on all the tasks that they, their families and the society at large place on them day in day out, with god given power to always excel, while maintaining a smile. An image that capitalism has taught us (men and women) so well to trust, maintain and rely on – the construct of a Superheroine-at-work. 

I was interested in talking to the women that I meet in Graz about their daily burdens and routines as well as their takes on the Superheroine construct. These were women of various ages, so it was interesting to hear the generational challenges and strategies to survive the pressure. The goal is to deconstruct the appeal of the Superheroine, strip off layers of the seductiveness of that propagated image and present the real-life struggle for equal rights and equal distribution of reproductive work, as told in personal stories of women from the community.