When Mariana Castro Azpíroz, a graduate student in English, learned April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month, she immediately considered the Sloss Center as a safe space to talk about difficult topics, specifically gender violence.

With the Sloss Center, Mariana Castro Azpíroz is now facilitating a collaborative citizen artistry project, “Why Must I Carry This Burden?” to explore the ideas and objects people hold in an attempt to protect themselves from sexual assault or harassment.

Mariana Castro Azpíroz said the collaborative art piece is contributing to a zine created by género incógnitx, a student group in Mexico City. The project aims to criticize female self-defense objects and has been translated to English by Paola Castro Azpíroz, Mariana’s sister and a senior in design at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City.

The zine will be available at no cost throughout April at the Sloss House in English and Spanish.

From noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Mariana Castro Azpíroz and Paola Castro Azpíroz will hold a virtual event to discuss the connections between the project in Mexico City and Ames. A zine-making event will be held during the Sloss House’s weekly Feminist Family Dinner from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday with food and materials provided and no previous registration required.

According to Mariana Castro Azpíroz, the virtual event will show how experiences of gender violence are similar across countries and for people of different nationalities.

“The project in Mexico City also allowed people to write about their experience with gender violence, so [at] our virtual event we will discuss those connections,” Mariana Castro Azpíroz said.

“Throughout history, women have had to carry a series of responsibilities, expectations, roles and even objects to defend themselves from a world that does not allow them to exist peacefully,” Paola Castro Azpíroz stated. “This burden is rarely recognized but continues to grow every day. It is essential that we work together to build a world where everyone is safe, and we think that speaking up is the place to start.”

Mariana Castro Azpíroz also wrote “Background Violence,” a poem in response to género incógnitx’s project in Mexico City, which is also on display at the Sloss House and will be read during the virtual event.

“I wrote [“Background Violence”] in response to a roundtable discussion on gender violence that género incógnitx organized in Mexico City, which was live-streamed on YouTube,” Mariana Castro Azpíroz said. “There is also a collection box, paper tiles and a pen for ISU students to leave a note, poem or drawing of the burdens that they carry because of gender violence.”

Students are also welcome to create any forms of written or visual art, such as essays, illustrations and collages, and bring it to the Sloss House as a contribution to the project.

Mariana Castro Azpíroz said the main part of the virtual event will be discussing the received art entries.

“They could draw, write or express their thoughts through any form of art,” Mariana Castro Azpíroz said. “Someone even printed a crime warning notification that they got on their email and wrote a message on top of it.”

Registration for the virtual event can be done online.