Miss Landmine

Angolan Women Disfigured by Landmines Reclaim Their Bodies

Agusta Urica, 31, was crowned the world's first Miss Landmine this week in Luanda, Angola, a country still struggling with the remnants of a 20-year civil war. The controversial pageant was the brainchild of Norwegian artist Morten Traavik, who traveled to the African country in 2003. There, he saw how the slow and delicate process of a country's physical reconstruction and social integration is hampered by landmines left over from a devastating civil war. Currently, there are 1,400 landmine-impacted communities effecting more than 1.6 million people in Angola alone.

The Miss Landmine project began three and a half years ago, when I visited Angola for the first time. The very long civil war had just ended the year before. There were still very strong restrictions as to where one could move outside of the big cities because the whole countryside was, and is still, littered with landmines.

I attended a beauty pageant that the street kids in the back alley had put together on New Year’s Eve. It struck me as being so different from all the commercialism in our western culture, associate with those kinds of pageants.

On the contrary, it was a feel-good experience; it was more like a street party with the whole neighborhood attending. The kids organized everything themselves, with girls from seven to 17 parading through all the regular motions of a beauty contest with great earnestness and dedication.

Is it an art project? Is it a humanitarian project? Is it both? Certainly has been my objective all along that Miss Landmine would have a political or humanitarian impact. What is special about Miss Landmine is that it's between arts and public service.

The main criterion is that the woman or girl wants to participate in a project like Miss Landmine. Not all women disabled by mines are comfortable with the way they look and their disability.

The women taking part are not being regarded as victims to be pitied or condescended. Rather, they were just like any other contemporary Angolan woman.

Criticism of the Beauty Pageant

The criticism so far has been variations over the same theme, which is that beauty contests are anti-feminist and should be banished. The beauty pageant in this particular situation is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means of expression to get a message across.

What do I see when I look at the pictures of Miss Landmine contestants? I see true beauty. I see beautiful women who are proud, dignified and comfortable with who they are. And that strong, feel-good factor is all the while undermined by the tragic and quite horrible back-stories of mutilation and war that inevitably stays with a landmine survivor. It is a picture of ambiguity, but where the forces of life prevail.