The Women with no arms (La femme sans bras)

This sculpture was made by Anne Dubos and Andhra between 2005 and 2007. It was originally Andhra’s idea to create a sculpture out of "papier mache" that would represent a caricature of the ideal of Western feminine beauty.

The "papier mache" women would have extremely long legs and high heels, balloon like breasts, a very thin waist, a Ronald McDonald like mouth and a peroxide blond long haired wig. She would have no arms as to symbolically show how little "grip" she has on her existence and her surroundings. She would be made of detached body parts that would be assembled and would hang from the neck with a rope from the ceiling. All her body parts would be covered with beauty multinational logos cut out from magazines.

The project was started in Locarno, Switzerland, at Andhra’s then Italian boyfriend’s house, Fabrizio. She managed to make the body parts and cover them with cut-outs of cosmetic companies’ logos. But then suddenly, she was expelled of Switzerland and was unable to complete the project.

Then Anne came along in Fabrizio’s life. She was curious about the body rolled up in a plastic bag under the bed in Fab's bedroom. When she was told that the sculpture had been made to be snuggled in a Miss Something beauty contest and to be hailed up in the air by helium blown balloons and to explode on the stage creating chaos, she was seduced. She asked Fabrizio to tell Andhra she would like to finish the project. The latter was thrilled.

Anne’s vision was different but the essence of her perspective was similar. She assembled the body parts with metal wire and rolled around the Women with no arms a red light garland. The result pleased Andhra very much. Later, they happened to both live in India, they met and became sisters.