living in two worlds
with eigenMächtig e.V.
The collective eigenMächtig e.V. asked women and trans people who have experienced violence: What do the experiences of violence and neglect that you have had mean to you? How have these experiences shaped you? What helped you to survive? What helps today? What is missing – then and now? Do you have visions and wishes for where you want to go? The answers came and come mostly in text form. The contributions are intimate and vulnerable – it is difficult to capture experiences of violence with words.
I transferred the texts to the medium of paper and bound each one into a book object. I chose very translucent papers with striking tactile qualities. I used their delicacy, roughness, fragility and resistance to make the texts tangible. Each book object is accompanied by a found natural object, which simultaneously demands a conscious decision from the reader to pick up the book object and makes them a grounding offer outside the text. In this way, the voices of the survivors in the exhibition are consciously touched by gentle hands and carefully read.
During a three-day workshop in November 2023, women and trans people who have experienced violence bound their own texts into book objects.