Opening
Tuesday, 19. February 2019, 7pm
Exhibition Duration / Exhibition Period
February 20 - February 24. February 2019, 3pm to 6pm
Menstruation is something commonplace in our lives. Yet, to this day, it is still a taboo subject in many cultures and is usually portrayed negatively or ignored. The artist Petra Mattheis, on the other hand, adds positive images and words to the topic. She pleads for accepting the body in all its natural processes and also for changing the public perception. In 2013, she launched her artistic project "Become a Menstruator," or BAM.
Mattheis developed text and image motifs from her research on monthly blood. On the project website www.becomeamenstruator.org, templates for stamps can be printed out and replicated in a do-it-yourself method, among other things. Her manifesto "28 Days to Break the Menstrual Taboo" has been translated into several languages.
On her Queen's Walk, Petra Mattheis talks about her long-term project and the connection between art and activism. Included are some of her works created over the past few years. Also the stamping game Who's your Womb? Facial expressions can be stamped into a face-like uterus mold.
The presentation is part of the maecenia Foundation's Queen's Ways event series. Since 2002, maecenia has established a series of events in which female artists and scholars present their projects to the public. maecenia calls this series Queen's Paths because women's lives and careers rarely follow as straight a path as the proverbial "King's Path." The lectures, discussions and film presentations focus on female authors with a project they have submitted to maecenia. The Königinnenwege are often designed in cooperation with various Frankfurt cultural institutions.
Petra Mattheis was born in North Rhine-Westphalia, has been menstruating since 1978 and lives in Leipzig. She studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Mainz and graduated as a master student at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. The BAM Prints series consists of one letterpress motif for each of her prolific years, the edition size corresponding to the periods of the respective year. It is now a series of 41 motifs, the equivalent of 5.5 years of daily bleeding
Text source and more information about this event: https://www.atelierfrankfurt.de/portfolio_page/19-2-praesentation-shark-weeks/
