In my artistic practice, I work with the medical language and gaze on the body. I am interested in examining the significance and power of language and gaze, how it shapes and defines our perception of the body. My vision is to create a narrator position from bodies, which often experience being described through an outside gaze: the doctor, the authority, the professional.
With the video medium as a tool, I strive to create works that meet the audience through a bodily presence and a vulnerability that is identifiable to the viewer, independent of their own body.
By considering bodies with physical impairments as carriers of experience and knowledge, I want to create space for reflection on the values we attach to our bodies, and to challenge the social structure of the time, which emphasizes physical as well as mental strength, productivity, and health. It is thus a universal narrative that is based on my own personal narrative as a woman born with a physical impairment.
In my visual universe, I lean towards classic motifs from western-art history, and its traditional depiction of the naked woman. This trope or archetype appears in many of my works, and the figure has become a tool to symbolize a relic of the past, which at the same time has many coincidences with the way we today refer to the impaired or non-abled body. As they have both been subjected to alienation as well as been considered fragile and incapacitated, in need of help and protection if they are to commit in the world. And while the woman represents "the second sex", for me the non-abled body represents "the other body".
With this as a starting point, I am interested in creating a broad and inclusive perspective that shows how the gaze, language, and narrative – common to us all – shape and influence our self-understanding and our perception of the people we meet in world.
Link to video: https://www.lunascales.com/#/eyelids/
