FEMonumental Transformances in Rural Public Space.
Conni Holzer
FEMonumental Transformance is a transmedia performance art method to transform patriarchal monuments into feminist monumental practices. It takes place in the rural area of Vorarlberg (AT) focusing on the monuments placed there.
Kulisic & Tudman (2009) argue that monuments communicate thought, symbolism and hierarchies of a society. In a patriarchal society, these representations manifest and recreate patriarchal domination among other forms of domination, not only in public space, but also in society and in the incorporated mental structures of people (Rose 1993, Lerner 1986). The project experiments with ways to transform patriarchal monuments into feminist monumental practices using performative explorations, experimental movie making and overpainting of performance photographs. The aim here is to detect patriarchal structures and construct publicly alternative, intersectional queer feminist (hooks, Grosz, Ahmed) forms of commemoration and worshipping in their place. Part of the project is also the creation of the FEMonumental Guide, a toolkit in the form of a set of methods, which can be used by other artists to transform monuments in different socio-political contexts.
In this exhibition, you can see the FEMonumental Transformation process of the Statue of Dr. Anton Schneider in Bregenz (Austria), the second monument Conni worked with in her artistic research.
Video, Text and Score
Fluffy Softness
This movie explores the FEMonumental idea of monuments being fluffy soft moving living beings. The idea emerged from the Transformance (transformative transmedia performance) of the Dr. Anton Schneider statue in Bregenz (Austria). Fluffy Softness proposes soft fluffy hugs as a FEMonumental practice, combining documentation material from the Transformance with other recordings, experimenting with layers, colours and repetition.
What if our public commemoration practices were guided by fluffy softness as value, materiality and principle?
The accompanying text is the reflection of the artist’s internalised patriarchal thoughts towards Fluffy Softness. It is an attempt to dismantle several layers of patriarchal structures through the transmedia art process, which shows the deep roots of patriarchal thought on all levels of existence.
Score:
Put on the fluffy cardigan while you watch the video, touch it, feel it, turn into the fluffy softness. Offer soft and fluffy hugs.
Documentation Video of the FEMonumental Transformance of the Dr. Anton Schneider Statue
The documentation movie of the Transformance (transformative transmedia performance) of the Dr. Anton Schneider Statue shows the main stages of the performance. The Transformance follows a protocol and uses performative improvisation with movement, speech, writing and drawing to transform the patriarchal structures of the monument into FEMonumental ideas. The stages of entrance, deconstruction, liminal stage (transformation) and exit are inspired by rites of passage (Van Gennep, Turner) as transformative performances.
The patriarchal structures/statements that appear in the form of an audio collage in the deconstruction stage of the Transformance were extracted from the monument in an earlier performative exploration using the Test for Patriarchal Structures.
Through improvisation in the liminal stage of the Transformance emerged three FEMonumental ideas: the lying on the ground, the fluffy soft cuddling monument and a monument for the women who fight. These ideas and the recorded and photographed material from the Transformance were the basis for the visual exploration through experimental movie making and overpainting of performance photographs.
Overpaintings and text-based paintings
Serving the people
The Overpaintings use photographs of the Transformance (transformative transmedia performance) of the Statue of Dr. Anton Schneider. They explore the FEMonumental idea ‘What if this monument would be lying on the ground?’, which sparked during the liminal stage of the Transformance.
What if the statue would be lying on the ground?
The FEMonumental practice ‘Serving the people – all people – as a true leader’ in a literal sense emerged through the painting process. The artist elaborates on the idea through imagining to be in the painting in the accompanying text.
Serving the people / Conni Holzer / 2023 / Acrylic colour and pencil on art print (Hahnemühle William Turner paper) and text / 30x40 cm / Photograph by Nina Lyne Gangl.
To the gentle daughters
Following the idea of ‘What if this monument would be lying on the ground?’ Conni overpainted this photograph from the Transformance of the Dr. Anton Schneider Statue. The overpainting process started with the adaptation of the inscription on the pedestal from ‘to the brave sons of the fatherland’ to ‘to the gentle daughters of the motherland’. As an expression of gentleness emerged the notion of touch, which Conni expressed through handprints made with a tiny linocut hand. As an addition to the visual exploration, the artist wrote a text while imagining lying on the monument in the painting.
To the gentle daugthers / Conni Holzer / 2023 / Acrylic colour and pencil on art print (Hahnemühle William Turner paper) / 30x40 cm / Photograph by Nina Lyne Gangl.