Pamela Ybañez

Power/Control 

Metallic thread and paper 

On page 64 it states:  “...people [had] organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society… in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail”and that “[t]he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facility by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” This is the part that moved me the most. The word that stood out is Control. We are all fighting for control. Some wish to control others while others simply wish to remain in control of their own selves. Why is it that some voices matter more when it comes to one’s own body? None of these men have ever had a human being come out of them nor have they ever experienced an abortion. I’ve experienced both and there is no one easy choice. Both choices are excruciating, freeing and deepen you as a human being in different ways.

Another aspect of Control always boils down to Power, power to make our own choices. Power by those that make laws, but also of the power of women's bodies, the power to create life. I see the female reproductive organ as amazingly powerful. So, how can we as females begin to feel and act as the powerful creatures we truly are?

Bio

Pamela Ybañez is a Bay Area based artist. Her artwork incorporates personal and social investigations as a way to discuss inequalities, social hierarchies and as a way to strengthen her connection to her homeland. Examining how class and race affects different groups of people in similar and different ways, she examines her own history of migration, when they were allowed to come here, and how her being in this country relates to the Civil Rights Movement.  In the past few years she’s been learning about the history of weaving in the Philippines and how it has been passed on generationally. Her goal as an artist is to explore how we are woven, unwoven, and how we can connect more constructively with our communities and ourselves. It is this transformative desire to connect and this process of discovery that drives her art.

Most recently, she is a recipient of the Center for Cultural Innovation Quick Grant and an Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute. She received her MFA from the University of Buffalo with a BA from the University of Hawaii at Hilo. She is a founding member of a Filipina/o/x artists collective in the Bay Area called Epekto Art Projects and is also a member of Rock Paper Scissors Collective.