The Weight of Thought
The concept of the "weight of thought" and its relation to gender was a central theme in Dr. Maria Amparo Alonso Sanz’s public lecture, delivered on June 21, 2024, at the Malta School of Art. The lecture, titled Artistic Actions in Raising Awareness of Gender Equality and Sexual Diversity in University Contexts, was part of the MRER Lecture Series. Dr. Alonso Sanz, from the University of Valencia, had spent three months in Malta in 2024 researching art education and socially engaged practices. Her presentation drew on various projects, including El Peso del Pensamiento (The Weight of Thought), a performance conducted in collaboration with Maria Vidagañ (Universitat Jaume I) across 26 libraries at three public universities in the Valencian Community, Spain.
The performance sought to critique the gender imbalance in academic knowledge production by reclassifying a random selection of fifty books from each library. Ignoring traditional bibliographical categorization, the performers instead categorized the books by the stated gender of the authors, creating three stacks: one for male authors, one for female authors, and one for mixed authorship. Through this process, the performance aimed to expose the overwhelming predominance of male authors in academic collections. During the performance, one performer read the author’s name aloud and placed the book on the corresponding stack while the other recorded the data. Each event concluded with the public announcement of the number and weight of books in each stack, a moment made all the more impactful by the stark contrast between the audience’s vocal reactions and the typical quiet of the library. A further dissemination of the project and its message was carried out by sending postcards with photos of the installation to colleagues.
This performance underscores the cultural and symbolic violence inflicted on women in academic spaces, where the legitimization and dissemination of knowledge remain deeply gendered. By highlighting the gender bias in scientific and literary publications, the work critiques the structural inequalities embedded within academia.
All photos: Courtesy of Maria Amparo Alonso Sanz and Maria Vidagañ.
More information available here: Vidagañ, M. y Alonso-Sanz, A. (2021). Instrucciones para pesar el pensamiento. Congreso Fugas e Interferencias. VI International Performance Art Conference.
