C& América Latina: In your performances you often come close to the limits of what the human body can endure. In 2005, you carved in the word “bitch” into your thigh. For Autophobia (2013), you fired a 9mm bullet at your own shadow. These are works which, beyond their political undertone, allow for an interpretation toward auto-aggression.
Regina José Galindo: To be perfectly clear, I am not a masochist. In my private life, I, Regina José Galindo, don’t go to such physical extremes as I do for example in the performance Confession. There, I subject my body to a method of torture called “waterboarding”, but I am not a victim. Instead, I am the intellectual proprietor who has researched and conceived this act down to the smallest detail. This is a very important point for me to make. Autophobia is not a suicide act. No. In Spanish, we have the expression “to be afraid even of one’s own shadow”. This is the metaphor I am interested in. As a woman in Guatemala, one is permanently exposed to the danger of attacks such as rape or other forms of humiliation. I want to find an image which recounts this everyday conduct as well as the fears it provokes.
Autophobia addressed exactly this fear, which also plays a prominent role in Bitch. In 2005 there was a series of murders of women. The killers carved the words “Death to the Bitches” into the corpses. Here, there might be a point of self-reference, because I remember thinking: “I inflicted this pain onto myself, now you can’t hurt me”. Moreover, it was important for me to use my art to disclose this series of murders and initiate a conversation. Bitch was an important experience which strongly influenced and altered my artistic work.