The artist who created a giant 108ft vulva-like sculpture defiant despite the fury of her critics

• A giant, 108ft vulva-like sculpture installed on a Brazilian hillside late last year caused controversy across the country and beyond. 
• “Diva” is the work of visual artist Juliana Notari and is located within the Usina de Arte sculpture park in northeast Brazil.
• Some took issue because the sculpture was anatomically incorrect for a vulva after it was widely reported as representing one, although Notari never explicitly said this at any point. 
• A Facebook post included an image showing Notari posing with the 20 men who had built the piece, which many also took issue with considering that it was intended to be a feminist piece.
• Politicians and the public reacted with fury, calling it “horrifying,” “a disgusting eyesore,” and “leftist propaganda.”
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A giant, 108ft vulva-like sculpture installed on a Brazilian hillside late last year caused controversy across the country and beyond. 

The piece, ‘Diva,’ is the work of visual artist Juliana Notari and is located within the Usina de Arte sculpture park in northeast Brazil.

Diva is 108 feet high, 52ft wide, and 19ft deep and was widely compared to a vulva in the international press, leading to criticism about its anatomical inaccuracy due to the absence of a clitoris and labia.

However, Notari told Insider: “I have to say that Diva cannot be reduced to a vulva. Diva is a big wound. If she were just a vulva, I would have made the big lips, the clitoris. I am not interested in building just one vulva, as it is precisely its form of wound that makes it possible to open the field of meanings of the work.”

The massive piece took over 11 months to construct, which the artist detailed in a Facebook post from New Year’s Eve.

She also explained: "In 'Diva,' I use art to dialogue with issues that refer to gender issues from a female perspective combined with a cosmopocentric and anthropocentric western society."

The Facebook post also included an image showing Notari posing with the 20 men who had built the piece, which many online took issue considering that it was intended to be a feminist piece.

Others pointed out that the sculpture park, which covers around 74 acres of land, is built on the site of an old sugar mill and that an image of the workers from the post showed that they were all Black. 

Notari replied: "The photo is a portrait of our Brazilian society. The art world, one of the most elite social fields, is not a world apart from society. It mirrors society with all its problems as well. 

"Wounds such as slavery, sexism, the extermination of indigenous peoples, and the military dictatorship have not been treated and, therefore, Brazil remains ill.

"I think it is important that art through Diva brought these colonial traumas to the fore. I am not afraid to deal with trauma. It is necessary to endure the discomfort to be able to reinvent itself."

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Politicians and the public both reacted to the art, with some calling it "horrifying," "a disgusting eyesore," and "leftist propaganda."

Right-wing Brazilian figure Olavo de Carvalho also commented on the giant vulva and tweeted that it should be twinned with a penis. 

The artist said: "Historically taken as a sign of women, the vulva for millennia has been attacked, annulled and subdued by patriarchy. 

"While the vulva or menstrual blood, for example, are transformed into taboo, on the other hand, we have the phallus consecration, taken as a symbol of victory, courage, strength, power."

Responding to the backlash she received after the installation of the piece was completed, the sculptor also told Insider: "One of the open wounds that Diva puts its finger on is undoubtedly the misogyny that arises from the structural patriarchalism in Brazilian society."

Notari said that this had been constantly reinforced by the hate speeches of the right-wing Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro.

She added: "Their ideas, behaviors and mainly their policies have supported that part of the population that shares these same macho values, which ended up acquiring a kind of 'legitimacy.'"

Diva is part of the 'Dr. Diva's project showcases Notari's work and has been touring across Brazil and Europe for two decades.

One of her most notable works displayed in France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands portrayed a bleeding vagina using cow's blood.