BREAKING THE WAVES

Featuring Carmen Angejo and Sandra Pablo, Breaking The Waves focuses on Portugal’s economic situation and is aimed as a symbolic gesture of silent dissent.

The performers are unemployed Portuguese women who responded to an open call for casual work. Each participant got paid a nominal fee of €100.00 to shave their heads. Given how the labour market is so prejudiced in Portugal, highly driven by prescribed stereotypical canons of appearance, the courage of these women goes beyond what the camera relays.

Shaving heads has many different and even contradictory readings depending on the different cultures and contexts where it takes place. This gesture may signify shame, punishment, humiliation, grief, loss, and despair; on the other hand it is also symbolic of a renewal of energy, revolt, contestation, provocation and a reassessment of new directions, a new start. As such, this symbolic gesture covers all the affective stages that the Portuguese are experiencing at the present time.

Project commissioned by Laboratório de Artes Creativas, Lagos.