Artwork
performanssiryhmä Arena Baubon esitys The Vagina-painting-seminar about the Explicit Body in Performance
performanssiryhmä Arena Baubon esitys The Vagina-painting-seminar about the Explicit Body in Performance is an unspecified painting by Melissa Hanhirova. It dates from 2013 and is held in the collection of the Finnish Heritage Agency.
About this work
Overview
Created in 2013 by Finnish artist Melissa Hanhirova, the work titled The Vagina‑painting‑seminar about the Explicit Body in Performance records a collaborative, live painting event. The image is part of the collection of the Museum of Ethnography and documents a moment when participants engage physically with a large, paint‑splattered canvas.
Subject & Meaning
The scene captures a figure squatting on a chaotic surface of thick, multicoloured paint, suggesting an embodied confrontation with the materiality of the body. The title’s reference to the vagina and explicitness points to an investigation of gendered bodily experience within the performative act of painting.
Technique & Style
Hanhirova employs a documentary‑style photograph that freezes the messy, gestural process of paint application. The composition emphasizes splatters of red, blue, yellow and black, as well as the tactile presence of brushes, tubes and a hand, highlighting the physicality of mark‑making.
History & Provenance
The image was produced during a performance organized by the collective Arena Baubon and entered the Museum of Ethnography’s holdings shortly after its creation. It remains catalogued as an example of early‑2010s interdisciplinary work that merges performance, visual art and ethnographic concerns.
Context
Emerging in a period when Finnish artists were increasingly interrogating bodily politics and participatory art, Hanhirova’s piece aligns with contemporary debates about the visibility of female anatomy in public discourse and the role of the body as both tool and subject in artistic practice.
Legacy
The work continues to be referenced in discussions of performance‑based painting and feminist art interventions, illustrating how collaborative, bodily engagement can expand the boundaries of both visual and ethnographic documentation.
Artist & collection
Artist
