Getting out of forgotten: The disruptive vision of Owanto Thelma Mort Pages 20-28 | Published online: 09 Nov 2020 h"ps://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2020.1833512 abstract This paper explores how the Gabonese artist Owanto’s travelling multimedia art installation One Thousand Voices brings to light women’s experiences of female genital mutilation (FGM). FGM is a gender-based public health issue which affects more than 200 million girls and women worldwide, but has been regarded as a discrete cultural practice and therefore continues. This profile piece examines how Owanto’s visual art work – enlarging found object photographs, to which the symbolic traditionally female-crafted flowers are added, combined with capturing FGM survivors’ accounts and amplifying them in a sound installation – originates in her personal family history, a mindful studio practice, and collaborative processes of working with NGOs and health workers. Using interviews and interpretations of the artwork, Owanto’s artistic contribution is described and how it disrupts the continuation of FGM and breaks the silence around its practice, bringing it into the new domain of the international art world. The paper offers an introduction to the motivations and processes behind the ongoing project of Owanto’s One Thousand Voices, and attests to the power of an interdisciplinary approach and collaborative work in addressing FGM. keywords: • collaborative process • female genital mutilation • multimedia installation art • Owanto • public health • women’s voices Previous articleView issue table of contentsNext article Introduction Gabonese artist Owanto’s ambitious sound installation project One Thousand Voicesis an ongoing, snowballing process to collect 1000 voiced experiences of victims of female genital mutilation (FGM).Footnote 1 Despite there being policy