Female guerrillas in the MASP photographic collection

Abstract

The article examines the female guerrillas series by Virginia de Medeiros (Feira de Santana, 1973), with the aim of bringing visibility to an alternative way of looking at and thinking about photographic practice. Situated at the intersection of women’s studies and visual culture, the article advocates for a multidimensional approach to gender inequalities. Drawing on bibliographic and documentary sources, it challenges claims of purported equality within the art world, revealing how women’s photographic practices have historically been rendered invisible. It argues that Virginia de Medeiros’s photographic practice constitutes a relational practice and a strategy of resistance to the canon. Her approach operates through the establishment of a polylogue with the women she photographs, as it does not seek to confine them within a single identifiable category. Rather, it aims to dismantle hierarchies and to create a space of multiple lived experiences, in which diverse forms of existence encounter one another.