Desconocida Unknown Ukjent

Desconocida Unkown Ukjent is an international art project utilizing a mass collaboration, stitching name tags to protest the continuing murder of women in Ciudad Juaréz, Mexico, and in remembrance of similar crimes worldwide.

Background

About Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Since 1993, more than 2500 women have been brutally murdered, and hundreds have disappeared in the mexican boarder city of Juaréz. Explanations for the murders range from the use of women as prizes for drug cartels, domestic violence, and so-called sexual violence tourism. Many of the victims worked in the numerous sweat shops in Juaréz and the name tags inside their dust coats were often used to identify the decomposed bodies. Over the years, the Mexican Government has not been able to make actions that has solved the cases or prevented new from happening. The problem has instead been expanding and is now recognised all over Mexico. In Juárez, every week new names appear on the list of victims. The art project Desconocida Unkown Ukjent was initiated by Lise Bjørne Linnert in 2006 as a global mass collaboration, protesting continuing murders of these women. Each name tag is 2 × 8 cm and stitched by 5400 individuals in about 500 globally arranged workshops. By April 2022 the project have reached more than 8700 tags.

Ellas tien nombre
They have a name

Follow the link www.ellastienennombre.org/mapa
You will find a map where each red dot is a name. When you click on this dot it reaveals the information about all registered femicides in the city of Juárez in Mexico.
 

Concept

Each participant in Desconocida Unkown Ukjent, embroiders two name tags; one with the name of a murdered woman in Ciudad Juárez, the other label with the word Unknown in the participants own language, memorizing victims of similar crimes globally. The project is democratic and open for all. The essence is the time each participant gives.

We all have a relationship with names – our name is often the first thing we learn to write. To stitch the murdered woman’s name on a small piece of cloth is a physical act, time consuming, repetitious; an intimate experience. It is an act of care, in remembrance and of protest.

Initiating

Lise Bjørne Linnert heard about the situation in Ciudad Juárez in Mexico for the first time in 2000 when she was living in Houston, Texas. At the end of 2005, the Station Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston, a museum that is dedicated to a political and social agenda, invited her to create a work dedicated to the women in Juárez, for the exhibition, Frontera 450.

At the time, Lise was living in Norway again and her immediate thought was to use the physical distance as a starting point for the work. She wanted to find a way to spread awareness about the horror happening in Juárez, and simultaneously enable a feeling of connection. In essence, abuse and murder of women are about us. It is something that has happened and continues to happen in every global society.

Since the beginning of the art project in 2006, women murdered in Juárez have been continually remembered through workshops arranged in galleries, universities, schools, libraries, cafés and private homes globally.

5400 people have, by April 2022, embroidered close to 8700 labels in the countries of:

Asia:
China
Israel
Japan
Nepal
Palestinian Territory
Pakistan
Philippines
Russia
Turkey

Australia

USA:
Alaska
Arizona
Atlanta
Florida
Illinois
Montana
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
South Carolina
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Texas

Canada

South America:
Argentina
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica

Mexico:
Chihuahua
Mexico City
Puebla
Guadalajara
Ciudad Juárez

Europe:
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Polen
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom

Exhibitions

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent has been exhibited widely. It is never shown without inviting the local community to participate embroidering labels and helping to install the work. The installation is site specific. The preferable format is a freestanding pink wall where the nametags are installed one and one, each held by a single sewing pin. The pink color is the same as the women in Ciudad Juaréz have chosen as their color of protest.

Desconocida Unknwon Ukjent continues to expand, sadly because new victims arrive weekly on the list of murdered women in Ciudad Juaréz. The project will last as long as the situation there remains unchanged. The duration functions as a continuous remembrance and points to our reality where abuse and murders of women are something we cannot escape but have to continuously fight.

Lise Bjorne Linnert

Hannah Ryggen Triennal 2019
New Land, Nordenfjeldske
Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway, 2019

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent
Liliput Gallery, Puebla, Mexico, 2018

NI EN MORE
Kunstplass, Oslo, Norway 2018

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent
shared between Women Museum, Mexico City and UN High Commissioners Office,
for Human Rights, Mexico City, 2017

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent
Juárez Contemporary, Ciudad Juárez,
Mexico and Rubin Center for the Visual arts, El Paso, USA, 2017

The Common Thread – Sexual Violence against Women
in Contemporary Art
, Regional court, Munich, Germany, 2015

Remember Them
Victoria Gallery&Museum
, Liverpool, UK, 2013

An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom
VISUAL Centre for
Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland, 2013

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent
Musée Bernadotte, Pau, France, 2012–2013

Contemporary Eye
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK, 2010–2011

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent
Hå gamle prestegard,
Jæren, Norway, 2010

Ni uná mas
The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Philadelphia, USA, 2010

REALITY CHECK
Trondheim Senter for Samtidskunst,
Trondheim, Norway, 2010

Off the Beaten Path. Violence
Women and Art, Stenersen museum, Oslo, Norway, 2009

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent
The gallery at University for the Creative Arts, Epsom, UK, 2009

Desconocida Unknown Ukjent
SOFT gallery, Oslo, Norway, 2008

Luleå Summer Biennial, Passion of Mankind
Luleå, Sweden, 2007

Frontera 450
Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas 2006

Help organizations
in Juarez

Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa 
(May our daughters come home) Non profit organization that helps victim´s families:

Red Mesa de Mujeres of Ciudad Juarez

Instituto Municipal de las Mujeres

International organiziations

UN WOMEN

AMNESTY NORGE

Upside Down World a news and analysis outlet covering social movements and politics in Latin America.

NI EN MORE – NI una más / ikke EN til / not one MORE – WEAR THE FIGHT – clothes for change

Videos
about Juárez

NI UNA MÀS by Laura Bustillos Jáquez

AGAINST A WALL 2016
Cinematography / editing:
Harald Gunnar Paalgard
Producer: Lise Bjørne Linnert


NI EN MORE

Working on Deconocida Unknown Ukjent for many years and traveling back and forth to Juárez many times made me want to create a project that could impact the women in a more direct way and I established NI EN MORE together with artist and activist Jane Terazzas and Veronica Corchado in Juarez

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Stingene det tar / Stitched time

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Colors for hope and equality / Farger for håp og likeverd