Multivocal Anti-Feminicide: Aesthetic Frames and the Making of the Women of Ciudad Juarez as a Global Injustice Symbol

In the early 2000s, the murders and disappearances of women happening since the 1990s in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, became an issue of global concern, sparking—alongside transnational political mobilizations—a breadth of cultural products addressing these killings. This article analyzes global visual arts pieces about feminicide in Ciudad Juárez to show how artists represented the events through different aesthetic frames, thus rendering it a multivocal issue. I use visual frame analysis of 138 visual art pieces, contextualized by interviews with artists and curators, and secondary texts to examine how artists translated feminicide. First, Western artists appeal to universalistic, humanitarian ideals to make people care about the victims based on a shared humanity. Second, Chicane artists construct feminicide in Ciudad Juárez as the epitome of oppressive global hierarchies. Finally, Mexican artists focus on social loss and mourning produced by the feminicides. By untangling three aesthetic frames, I contribute to discussions on global meaning-making by adding visual analysis and suggesting that complementary aesthetic frames can contribute to the symbolic power of feminicide worldwide.