Gun & Utero presents a uterus mounted above a handgun, whose

barrel is unmistakably phallic. Yet this work is not provocation for

provocation’s sake. The piece opens a dialogue between sex, violence,

and society, as a both victim and perpetrator.

Inspired by Barbara Krugers “Your body is a battleground”, the piece

is an outcry against gender violence and legislative power structures,

as well as the control and conquest of reproductive systems. Society

has been trained through the generations to see a womb, not a woman.

In Italy, one woman is killed every three days by a man, often by a

partner or ex. In the U.S., 12 states have enacted restrictions or bans

on contraceptive access post-Roe v. Wade. According to the UN,

around 81,000 women were killed globally in 2021. Of those, 45,000

(56%) were killed by intimate partners or family members.

Between these political and provocative symbols, the art evokes

centuries of femicide, state control over female bodies, and the deadly

relationship between masculinity and violence. The gun as a phallus

implicates societal systems that conflate penetration with domination.