I also forgot to mention! The very obvious theme of motherhood here, especially when you look at Sarto’s other works, infants and mothers are very prevalent.
One of the first things I thought when I saw this piece for the first time was the way it feels to raise a child while being surrounded by violence. To nurture a child, but you cannot change what they’ll be exposed to.
Now that I’m looking for common threads between Sarto’s works, consumption and predation are both extremely relevant.
The framing of this piece COULD even be to suggest the woman and baby are also among the meat to be consumed, thus the name— they’re in the butcher-shop as another product, not as predators themselves.
I still don’t understand the frog symbolism, but that’s another frequent mention.
Esther Sarto. Butchershop Bliss. 2019. Watercolour and Gouache on 300gsm hotpressed Watercolour paper.
24 x 16 inches
I’ve been thinking about this piece for weeks. I keep coming back to it trying to figure it out. I’ve seen some discussion, but no interpretation has ever really resonated with me.
There’s nothing particularly uncanny about the woman or baby, the surroundings seem normal for them. The lighting is bright, the room is cluttered but not obscured. The meat frames them in, but I’m not sure if that feels like an oppressive force.
The surroundings are visceral, but not scary in any way. Despite the raw meat, there’s no blood in the room, It seems clean.
The only conclusion I can come to is it’s about survival, food, and eating. The baby breastfeeding vs the butchers room. That comes back to the title, though, which doesn’t make much sense to me in that context.
There’s also several feminist and class conscious readings you could do of this; but I’m still not sure.
Please help me figure it out, I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this piece!!!
Salwa Ali picking grapes in front of her house, Galilee, Palestine, 1970 (from the family album)
If you think about it Ruby is one of the coolest Disco Elysium characters because she ran away from the mob, joined a seperate mob, somehow managed to gain the respect of the local law enforcement to the point where she can give them directions and they will follow them, got into the world's messiest breakup, harnessed an incomprehensible force as a weapon using something she built herself out of most likely scraps and she didn't even use it to kill anyone she used to to hold off the police. And she's a butch lesbian that is at her core a kind person who puts others above herself until the point where she will die if she doesn't run.
Ahmed Jamal Al-Madhoun (24/12/23)
Mohammed Abu Hwaidi (23/12/23)
Rizq Arrouq (22/12/23)
Muhammad Al-Saidi (22/12/23)
Adel Zorob (19/12/23)
Abdullah Alwan (18/12/23)
Haneen Ali Al-Qashtan (17/12/23)
Mashal Ayman Shahwan (16/12/23)
Assem Kamal Musa (16/12/23)
Rami Badir (15/12/23)
Ali Ashour Abu Malek (15/12/23)
Samer Abu Daqqa (15/12/23)
Khamis Hussain (15/12/23)
Ahmed Abu Abseh (13/12/23)
Hanan Ayad (13/12/23)
Narmeen Qawas (13/12/23)
Abdel Kareem Oudeh (12/12/23)
Mohammed Abu Samra (10/12/23)
Doaa al-Jabour (9/12/23)
Ola Atallah (9/12/23)
Hossam Omar Ammar (8/12/23)
Hamada Al-Yaziji (6/12/23)
Abdul Hamid Al-Qarinawi (3/12/23)
Mahmoud Salem (3/12/23)
Shaima Al-Jazzar (3/13/23)
Hassan Farajallah (3/12/23)
Hudhayfah Lulu (3/12/23)
Muhammad Farajallah (2/12/23)
Abdullah Darwish (1/12/23)
Muntaser Al-Sawwaf (1/12/23)
Marwan Al-Sawwaf (1/12/23)
Adham Hassouna (1/12/23)
Nader Al-Nazli (25/11/23)
Amal Zuhd (24/11/23)
Mostafa Bakeer (24/11/23)
Mohamed Mouyin Ayyash (23/11/23)
Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq (21/11/23)
Assem Al-Barash (21/11/23)
Jamal Haniyeh (21/11/34)
Farah Omar (21/11/23)*
Rabih Al Maamari (21/11/23)*
Ayat Khadoura (20/11/23)
Alaa Al-Nimr
Bilal Jadallah (19/11/23)
Abdelhalim Awad (18/11/23)
Sari Mansour (18/11/23)
Hassouneh Sleem (18/11/23)
Mostafa El Sawaf (18/11/23)
Amr Salah Abu Hayah (18/11/23)
Mossab Ashour (18/11/23)
Mahmoud Matar (15/11/23)
Ahmed Fatima (13/11/23)
Yaacoub Al-Barsh (13/11/23)
Mousa Al-Barsh (12/11/23)
Ahmed Al-Qara (10/11/23)
Yahya Abu Manih (7/11/23)
Mohamed Abu Hasira (7/11/23)
Mohamed Al Jaja (5/11/23)
Haitham Harara (3/11/23)
Mohamad Al-Bayyari (2/11/23)
Mohammed Abu Hatab (2/11/23)
Majd Fadl Arandas (1/11/23)
Iyad Matar (1/11/23)
Imad Al-Wahidi (31/10/23)
Majed Kashko (31/10/23)
Nazmi Al-Nadim (30/10/23)
Yasser Abu Namous (27/10/23)
Duaa Sharaf (26/10/23)
Zaher Alafghani (25/10/23)
Jamal Al-Faq’awi (25/10/23)
Saed Al-Halabi (25/10/23)
Ahmed Abu Mahadi (25/10/23)
Salma Mkhaimer (25/10/23)
Hudhayfah Al-Najjar
Mohamed Al Hassani
Mohamed El-Shorbajei
A’ed Ismail Al-Najjar (24/10/23)
Iman Al-Aqili (24/10/23)
Mohammed Imad Labad (23/10/23)
Roshdi Al-Sarraj (22/10/23)
Mahmoud Abu Zarifa (22/10/23)
Hany Al-Madhoun (21/10/23)
Mohammed Ali (20/10/23)
Khalil Abu Aathra (19/10/23)
Sameeh Al-Nady (18/10/23)
Mohammad Balousha (17/10/23)
Issam Behar (17/10/23)
Abdulhadi Habib (16/10/23)
Yousef Maher Dawas (14/10/23)
Salam Mema (13/10/23)
Ali Nisman (13/10/23)
Husam Mubarak (13/10/23)
Issam Abdallah (13/10/23)*
Abdul Rahman Shihab (12/10/23)
Anas Abu Shamala (12/10/23)
Ahmed Shehab (12/10/23)
Mustafa Al-Naqeeb (11/10/23)
Rajab Al-Naqeeb (11/10/23)
Mohamed Fayez Abu Matar (11/10/23)
Saeed Al-Taweel (10/10/23)
Mohammed Sobh Abu Rizq (10/10/23)
Hisham Alnawajeha (10/10/23)
As’ad Shamlakh (8/10/23)
Mohammad Jarghoun (7/10/23)
Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi (7/10/23)
Mohammad Al-Salhi (7/10/23)
*lebanese journalist | could not find date of martyrdom
spent the whole day confirming all of these names and looking through multiple resources. the ones with dates are journalists who’s date of martyrdom and/or exact cause of death is stated by sources besides the government media office official list.
I know how powerless it feels when you aren’t able to protest or donate money, but unity is incredibly important. All that matters is that enough people are heard.
If you live in the United States, you can and should call your US House Representative in favor of the Ceasefire Now resolution.
The following language is adapted from https://ceasefiretoday .com
"Hello, my name is ____.
"I live at ____ [your street address].
"My phone number is ____.
"My email address is ____.
"I'm calling to ask that the Representative add their name to the Ceasefire Now resolution led by representatives Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib. [pronounced "tuh-leeb"]
"It is absolutely urgent that the Representative demand a ceasefire, and that they call on Israel to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza."
----
If you call your US representative, you will speak to a staffer or an intern, not the representative themself.
The staffer or intern will take down your information (this is to make sure you are a constituent, meaning you live in that representative’s district. You should only call your own representative. If you don’t know who your representative is, you can visit https://www.house .gov/representatives/find-your-representative)
You only need to say is what’s in the script above. You don’t need to add to or alter the script if you don’t want to. You don’t need to convince the staffer to agree with you, and they won’t give you their opinion, because they aren’t allowed to. Be kind to them.
The actual words you use don’t matter, just the basic meaning of them. Be brief. It’s okay if you fumble or stutter.
What will happen once you hang up is that the staffer will mark down that a constituent called in favor of Ceasefire Now in Gaza and in favor of humanitarian aid.
At the end of the work day, the staffer will send a note to the representative saying how may constituents called in favor of ceasefire and aid, and how many (if any) called for additional aid to Israeli military operations. The representative uses this quantitative information to determine how much their constituents care about the issue, and what their constituents are advocating for.
Your representative will never hear your exact words. That’s ok. Calling is still an incredibly powerful action when done in mass. A representative who receives many calls advocating for a specific action is much more likely to take that action.
You can call at night or outside of working hours. That’s ok. What will happen is you will go to voicemail. The staffer will take down your information and opinion the following day (there is typically one staffer on call over the weekend who will do this).
If you leave a voicemail, make sure you leave any information about you that the voicemail message asks for. This is often your name, address, phone number, and email. This information is used to confirm that you live in the representative’s district, and so that the staffer or the representative can reply to you if need be.
Calling isn’t as scary as it sounds. It is a valuable action and a brave thing to do. Representatives take calls very seriously, and you can have a big impact by calling.
Ask your local friends and neighbors to phone bank with you. Phone banking is when many people call their representatives about the same issue. Phone banking is a very powerful action.
If you don’t want to call, you can always email, fax, or even mail a letter to your representative.
FART I was supposed to be drawing but I got sucked into the tumblr vortex. How did I get here what happened
@ghostthostt
The wambulance
Professionally Autistic || Adult || It/Silly/They || Real life sea slug
229 posts