Le Bal
6, impasse de la Défense
75018 Paris
https://www.le-bal.fr/en/2024/12/laia-abril-mass-hysteria-une-histoire-de-la-misogynie
LE BAL invites the Catalan artist-researcher Laia Abril (Barcelona, 1986) to present the final chapter of her ongoing work on the history of misogyny: On Mass Hysteria. Following On Abortion in 2016 and On Rape in 2020, this chapter continues the trilogy exploring the systemic control of women’s bodies across centuries and continents.
In On Mass Hysteria, Laia Abril offers a visual interpretation of the various explanations that have been used to describe what has long been labeled "collective hysteria." These phenomena primarily affect communities of young girls and women who are tightly bonded, and who face extreme stress or oppression, manifesting collective symptoms with no physiological cause: fainting, tremors, uncontrollable laughter, trance-like states...
Through numerous archives, from the Salem witches of the 17th century to the schoolgirls of Botswana in 2019, Laia Abril demonstrates the incredible geographical and temporal breadth of the phenomenon.