In a candle-lit room in Colorado State University’s Lory Student Center Oct. 15, portraits of women from 10 countries were spread along the wall as a tribute to their lives lost to senseless violence.
Hosted by the Survivor Advocacy and Feminist Education Center, El Centro and the Pride Resource Center, the exhibition entitled Remembrance Roses: Honoring the Lives Stolen by Femicide honored women lost to femicide.
“Femicide, which is the intentional killing of people who identify as women,” said Lili Zamarripa, SAFE Center media program coordinator. “It tends to often be (committed) by family members or people who identify as cis men.”
October marks the intersection of Relationship Violence Awareness Month, Latinx/é Heritage Month and LGTBQIA+ History Month, which brought the three centers together in creating the exhibition.
“I think that it is important to reflect on and to consider for those of us that are called to do something about solving this problem because it is a global problem.” -Aaron Escobedo Garmon, El Centro director
The exhibit honored 10 women and girls from different countries, including Belize, Trinidad, Brazil, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the United States and Bolivia. Guests circulated the room while intimately interacting with each woman’s story and photograph.
“It’s 10 different countries, and you get to see a picture of the person who was murdered, and then to get you to read about their story, who they were as a person and how they had passed,” Zamarripa said. “(We also explore) what that means within the context of that country.”
Rose petals were scattered on each table and applied to a large canvas rose painting at the end of the exhibit. Zamarripa drew inspiration from the flower’s symbolism in several cultures for its inclusion in the exhibition and incorporated it into October’s monthly observance.
“Our theme for Relationship Violence Awareness Month is ‘Surrounded by roses,’” Zamarripa said. “In a lot of different cultures, roses are used as a healing practice, and it’s also just something that I had always seen represent femininity, … so I wanted to incorporate that into this.”
The memorial also focused on Latinx/é women, with every country represented in the event except the United States being in Latin America. Femicide, as El Centro Director Aaron Escobedo Garmon explained, is an ever-present issue in the region.
“Within Latin America, femicide rates, gender-based violence are through the roof compared to other parts of the world,” Escobedo Garmon said.
In 2022 alone, at least 4,050 women were victims of femicide in Latin America, yet the number could be much higher when adding crimes that go unreported. While this epidemic is not original to Latin America, several cultural aspects may play into its prevalence, Escobedo Garmon said.
“One is because of the role that masculinity plays within many Latinx cultures,” Escobedo Garmon said. “Machismo is one of those reasons, but it’s also because of historical trauma that many families experience.”
Femicide can stem from many relationship dynamics, along with other systemic societal issues.
“Within Latin America, femicide shows up with partner-based violence,” Escobedo Garmon said. “So domestic violence and interpersonal violence that really escalates, also within violence that’s antitrans violence.”
The memorial paid tribute to Angie Zapata, a transgender woman who was murdered in 2008 in Greeley, Colorado. While the heaviness of the subject was prevalent in the room, it also made space for important, necessary discussion.
“It’s definitely heavy, it’s emotional, but I think it can open up our eyes to something outside of the United States, something that is intersectional across transness and gender and race and ethnicity, that I think will just give people a different perspective on how things like sexism can result in hard things and terrible things for some people,” said Maggie Hendrickson, Pride Resource Center Director.
As guests left the memorial, Escobedo Garmon noted what he hoped visitors took away and what can be put into action to create long-lasting, sustainable change.
“I think that it is important to reflect on and to consider for those of us that are called to do something about solving this problem because it is a global problem,” Escobedo Garmon said.
Reach Katie Fisher at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @CSUCollegian.