Mirta Kupferminc’s lecture was titled. “The Skin: Space for Repression and Expression”. In her work, she explores the similarities between traditional Hungarian embroidery and tattooing and also between the tattoos of Auschwitz survivors and modern tattoos. The tattoos of the survivors were identification numbers that initially meant nothing to them, while modern tattoos are a choice and a decoration. The survivors’ tattoos symbolized a loss of identity, but over time, they came to be important. Kupfermincs research revealed that the number comes to belong to them because they had to identify with it and they would not be the same person without that experience. Her work is very personal. She includes her mother and father’s life experiences and aspects of her Hungarian heritage. Her parents immigrated to Argentina from Hungary after surviving the Holocaust.
“La Piel de la Memoria” (“The Skin of Memory”) is an installation, which includes photography, painting, video, and interaction with the visitors. On one wall, she has a giant video of people walking around and two pictures in front: one of her mother, who is an Auschwitz survivor and one of a young Argentinean man with tattoos. Another wall contains etchings, paintings and photographs of the same theme. She provides a way for the visitors to experience discrimination by giving everyone a stamp reading, “The Skin of Memory”, except for people dressed in red. The people in red get a henna tattoo of a number instead, while everyone else gets to choose a tattoo design. I found this part of the installation to be most interesting because she is not just showing her art, but she is forcing people to experience it. This makes her artwork more powerful, because people will understand and appreciate the ideas behind it, not just the aesthetic of it.
She also showed a video called, “El Nombre y El Numero” (“The Name and the Number”). She told us to just watch and “feel first and figure out after.” It was painful to watch some parts of it. In one part, she is threading a needle with red string through a thin fabric that looks similar to skin. She is writing her fathers name with the thread. In another part, she is poking the skin-like fabric with a needle with ink on the end. She is tattooing a number. Our view is from the inside of the skin until she reveals what she had been writing. She has put us inside the skin of the survivors and says she wants us to connect with their experience. It works, because it looks painful to me. At the end of the video is a scene of women embroidering a blanket, including Mirta, her mother and other relatives. This part represents the transmission of culture and tradition from on generation to the next.
She said she struggled with the thought that she was exposing her mother for the sake of art. Her mother told her that nothing she makes can be as strong as what she survived. For the book project, I had these same thoughts, but the person I was photographing also reassured me. Still, I did not feel comfortable sharing everything. Maybe it is because I would not want to be exposed at all or because I have not had similar experiences. Kupferminc points out that there is a difference between real life and art and that art helps us to think about reality.
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