Laia Abril is one of the most important female artists of her generation. Her research-based practice uses photography, text, video, and sound, and focuses on topics relating to gender rights and women’s healthcare. She is best known for her trilogy ‘A History of Misogyny’, a three-part exploration which interrogates some of the most important issues of our time: abortion access, rape culture and the stigma of hysteria and women’s mental health.

In her second chapter, On Rape, Abril explores the history of misogyny and the pervasion of rape in global society. Spanning 2000 years, Abril brings together historical archives, photographs, data, curated objects and testimonials to evidence sexual violence, the systemic control of women’s bodies and how institutional care has failed to protect or prosecute.

Collectively, the work seeks to represent the origins of gender-based violence, societal stereotypes and the failing structures of law and order. Utilising research from biblical times to the present day, Abril visualises the nuance of sexual violence globally: the culture of forced marriage, the stigma of virginity, privacy in the age of social media and rape as a weapon of war. Abril unites these representations with powerful individual narratives: a wedding dress from a kidnapped bride in Kyrgyzstan, a US military uniform, a South African sports jersey, and a nun’s habit from Argentina. Each item of survivor clothing signifies an individual story of rape. Each is accompanied by text evidencing which institution has failed to act, shifting and subverting the victim-blaming narrative and instead examining the complicity of law enforcement, healthcare services and religious groups.

Testimonials from some of the world’s most powerful people; policy makers, police enforcement, and members of faith groups, present a shockingly casual attitude towards sexual violence. Laia Abril looks to hold these institutions and their representatives accountable. In that sense she stands in the tradition of art activists such as Tracy Emin, Jenny Holzer, Suzanne Lacy and Kara Walker, who established the discussion around rape as a recurring subject of debate. Laia Abril's work, carefully researched, data-collected, curated and archived, is an invitation to rethink and question social norms. The installation of images and photographs foregrounds the institutions that have failed survivors and emphasises a system which continues to perpetuate rape culture.

In November 2022, the V&A hosted an exhibition of 'On Rape and Institutional Failure' at the Copeland Gallery, Peckham, London, as part of the Parasol Foundation Women in Photography project. Following the exhibition's success, a number of works were accessioned into the V&A's permanent collection of Photography.