Panel 2 : “Final Taboos, Fleshy Bodies and New Boundaries - Gazing at the Scarlet Woman in 21C American Contemporary Arts Practice”
Speakers : Penny Slinger, Khara Oxier-Mori, Tiffany Trenda.
Moderated by Sally Annett and Manon Hedenborg White
Three contemporary women artists; Penny Slinger, Tiffany Trenda and Khara Oxier-Mori, all living and working in the USA, discuss aspects of their practice which address the concept of the modern 'Scarlet Women’ through differing media.
Slinger whose vast body of work spans five decades, with a concentration on the feminine, through film, performance, photography, writing and paint, has allowed us to preview her major series of images and writings ‘Reclaiming Scarlet’, begun in 2016, which addresses the physical and psychological taboos (still) used to oppress the human female and her sexuality. But; seen away from the male gaze. The un-tackled taboo of Menstruation is central to the work, which is deeply informed by esoteric and intercultural, non-denominational religious research around the divine and human feminine and its potential hybrid forms. She wishes to open up the hidden and suppressed secrets and functions of the female body to younger generations who have been swamped with images of cosmetically altered plastic-perfect bodies and pornography as consumption, highlighting the extreme commodification and subjugation of the female. Her work has a graphic precision which allows for little ambiguity and engages the viewer eye to eye using the photography and objects. It is hard to look away.
Trenda’s work explores the relationship of the (female) body to ever-changing, ever accelerating technologies by creating wearable ‘living’ sculptures adorned with digital screens. Her work represents how our bodies are expected to be part of a constantly shifting dialogue between the physical (natural) and simulated (technological) worlds. She creates unconventional amalgam forms of presence and embodiment, exploring the phenomenology of the body and the ways simulation affects and generates (new) intimacies, barriers, memories and somatic experiences. This work emerges against a background of artists like Donna Hathaway and cybernetics industries and looks towards future potentialities, augmentation, AI and (again) hybrid bodies. Proximity Cinema (2013) creates a performance which, explores and comments on the male gaze in cinematic history and its fetishisation of women. That is; the female body in cinema was and still is objectified for male pleasure. Each wearable created by Trenda renders a new boundary; a new skin.
The artists will each discuss the artistic elements shown in the ATELIER MELUSINE, Scarlet Women project exhibition and then dialogue around the shared ideas and taboos they encountered with the question, what is the ‘Transgressive Feminine’ in the 21C?
Time: Jan 22, 2022 08:00 PM Paris
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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87239816800?pwd=dWpOcEdaMGtXZnoyMUhHREd3SVhnZz09
SCARLET WOMEN 2021 - 2022
Novembre 31 2021 - Mars 08 2022
Scarlet Women Exhibition at Atelier De Melusine/
Chateau Mareuil / satellite venues, France