The starting point for the exhibition is the feminist manifesto of the same name by Virginia Woolf, who almost 100 years ago (1929) called for more writing studios for women. This demand was linked to the conviction that women were entitled to free space for their own creative or intellectual activities. Woolf thus productively reinterpreted the interior space, which was and often still is read as a classically feminine place of domesticity. Rather, she interpreted it in its function as a workplace, place of retreat, and shelter, as a resource that is a condition for emancipatory and creative processes.
The exhibition "A Room for One's Own", curated by Hanna Banholzer, takes this idea as a starting point and presents works by artists who question spatial power structures in different ways. Not only the necessity of open spaces and "safe spaces" will be addressed, but above all the appropriation of public space by women* and the associated demand for more visibility.
In her video performance Cranes, Katrin Bittl, together with her artist colleague Saioa Alvarez Ruiz, presents herself at her best: smoking, naked, surrounded by nature as by heavy machinery.
With an exploratory eye, Nele Ka's work HELLO P.R. MY OLD FRIEND examines recurring forms of storytelling based on the science fiction saga surrounding the male hero figure Perry Rhodan, which often turn out to be collections of imperial archetypal protagonists.
In the video installation Is writing female? Lilian Robl deals, among other things, with the question of the extent to which the literary establishment functions differently for non-male readers and whether there is such a thing as female* writing at all.
[To accompany the exhibition, a workshop in cooperation with the fe.mini.ism project will take place on April 23. Participants will be able to share their personal stories about feminist issues in the form of mini-zines. The resulting small-format magazines can be viewed by the public during the exhibition. Afterwards, the zines will flow into the collectively created archive of fe.mini.ism, which will continuously collect and disseminate personal anecdotes].
Short biographies:
Hanna Banholzer (*1993) studied cultural education, art theories and curatorial studies in Mönchengladbach, Linz and Zurich. In Munich, she first completed a one-year internship at the exhibition space PLATFORM in 2019, from which her project "Hotspots of Art" emerged to make non-institutional art spaces and offspaces in Munich visible. Afterwards, she worked independently for the Maximiliansforum or the Kunstclub13 e.V., among others. Since the beginning of 2022, she has been working at the Kunstmuseum Basel as a research assistant in the Education unVermittlung department, where she helps to conceptualize and organize the educational program.
Katrin Bittl (*1994) lives and works in Dachau and studied until 2023 in the class of Prof. Pitz, at the Academy of Fine Arts, in Munich. In her work she deals with social ideal images and norms. She explores her own body, as a woman with disabilities through video, performance and animation. Intimate spaces are created through private objects and pieces of furniture, which are included in installations and underline her biographical work. Social structures are questioned as she locates her own body in the plant world and raises questions about the concept of care, 'care work' and the family. In drawing and painting, she explores body standardizations that are manipulated and deconstructed by scaling them, painting over them, or placing them in new contexts. She is also a freelance writer, writing on the topics of intersectionality of women with disabilities, art, and inclusion.
Nele Ka (b. 2368 in SAO-21846 Cassiopeiae) is part of an unknown species - the Transplanetarians. Transplanetarians travel solar systems to explore the cause of transient existence. They prefer loving nonlinear relationships between their kind and different species. Nele Ka has been stationed on the blue planet for a few years. The research mission: to trace a variable of universality within global disparities. To examine connections between mortality, time and transience using different methods and materials. Contemporary social transformation is an essential part of her research.
Lilian Robl (*1990) studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and at the Ecole de recherche graphique Brussels, graduating in 2019 as a master student of Prof. Alexandra Bircken. She also holds a bachelor's degree in art history and literary studies. She has given interdisciplinary lectures at the Klassikstiftung Weimar, Leuphana University Lüneburg and the Richard Strauss Institute, among others. Since 2022, she has formed the artist-curator collective Crying Curators with Leontine Köhn. She was a fellow at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Delmenhorst in 2017. Last year, she was awarded the Federal Fellowship at the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris. Lilian Robl lives and works in Munich and Paris.
Lotte van den Hoogen (*1994, she/her) is an art educator from the Netherlands, currently residing in Munich. She gives workshops in Dutch, English and German and participates in exhibitions both in the Netherlands and Germany. With her background in art education and her passion for feminism, she wants to keep developing her community art project fe.mini.ism through collaborations and exhibitions.
A wonderful piece of news to end on! From 2024 we will be able to resume the exchange and residency programme with Taiwan together with our partners (TAV Taipei; Kulturreferat München, Villa Waldberta and Goethe Institut Taipei). From May-June 2023, the call for applications for Munich artists will be published, and we look forward to a lively participation again. |
