Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen is a Filipino/Danish artist born in 1970, known for her performance art. Her art explores the themes of culture and ethnicity, as well as the complexities of gender. She is known for referring to herself as ‘a living sculpture that talks’, using her body as the art, whether that be through song and dance, or using her own paint covered hair as the brush.
Rasmussen grew up in the Philippines, and moved to Denmark at a young age. Because of this, Rasmussen talks of her difficulty feeling at home and fitting in as she has always felt that she didn’t connect fully to those around her due to her appearance, and subsequently had to adapt – a problem which she still struggles with today. She expresses this through her variety of character work – playing different people in which she relates to, but have their own story/personality. She describes theses roles as shields expressing her pain, and uses these sad/negative feelings to create art so she that doesn’t feel weak or like a victim. This is blatantly displayed in her 4 minute piece ‘Absolutely Exotic’. Inspired by Indian, African and Hawaiian dances, Rasmussen performs in a grass skirt, dancing and singing about being perceived as an exotic object due to her appearance. While Rasmussen uses these characters to express her own experiences and pain, she wants people to see themselves in her art, and to relate to these roles as ordinary people.
When creating, she constructs her work with an overall surface which can be looked into deeper to reveal a more personal meaning. She says “The purpose of art is to find out who you are”.
I respect Rasmussen’s use of utilizing her pain to create art in the aim of not feeling weak or like a victim. For many, art is a way of expressing negative feelings, and is often used a type of therapy. As words can not always be used to describe a feeling, performance art in particular is a way in which these feelings can be displayed physically or vocally and, as I have experienced recently, can have a huge impact on the viewer AND performer.
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