Abstract:
For the "Fotzengalerie" of FIFTITU% - Vernetzungsstelle für Frauen* in Kunst und Kultur in OÖ (AT) I developed the artwork SCIVIAS based on a vision of Hildegard of Bingen of the 12th century. From an intersectional perspective, it questions stereotypes and transforms cultural-historical knowledge into current queer-feminist artistic and scientific discourses on the in_visibilization of the vulva.
At the same time, stone sculptures with splayed vulvas can be discovered in medieval churches in Ireland - Sheela-na-Gig. Translations range from old to young, ugly to beautiful and include sexual ambiguity (Andersen1977, NicDhàna 2020). Like the sheelas, mermaids can also be interpreted as posthumanist queer actors with intersectional approaches to sexuality.
Baroque pearl figures (treasure art) are early modern carriers of meaning and knowledge. In relation to this, I show the artistic process of producing my new treasure art and illustrate how intersectionality influences the representation of different identities. Craft is art.
The collection concept of the Wunderkammer is regarded as a place of modern knowledge formation - they are colonial collections. Treasure art with irregular pearls in particular embodies the "exotica" and "mirabilia" as pearl figures - as a display of colonial world views, and what exists or could exist (Foucault 1980). They are carriers of meaning and knowledge that transport, generate, (re)produce and negotiate early modern knowledge of nature and the body (Suchy 2019, Daston/Park 1998).
My works of new treasure art overturn traditional gender-specific attributions of certain techniques, materials and themes. They are hybrids of standardized plastic bodies of model size H0 = 1:87, solidly cast in precious metal, combined with artificial found objects - an interplay of fragments and the seemingly imperfect. The legacy of colonial power structures are squeezed and recycled through my works and re-/activate the creative production of minoritarian cultures.
