M506 - first draft

Ira Hoffecker

History as Personal Memory

Table of contents

(to be completed once the final version has been set)

Curator’s note (The curator of the recent exhibition offered to write a curator’s note for the catalogue. I would add this at the beginning. I hope to receive it in the next few weeks….)

Introduction                                                                                                                                                                             (4)

Research                                                                                                                                                                                  (6)

Paintings

History as Personal Memory – film

A la recherche de Michel Foucault – film

Conclusion

Bibliography

Biography/Education

Exhibitions

Introduction

I am interested in how Germans deal with collective memory, with suppressing and forgetting the past as opposed to remembering and striving to come to terms with the past.

Formerly my work critically examined and analyzed the different identities that places like Berlin can take on over time within paintings. With this new body of work, I scrutinized German collective memory, investigated power structures and the overstepping of personal boundaries. I combined ideas pertaining to homeland and my own personal memory. This body of work consists of paintings, drawings and the video History as Personal Memory.

In my video, I introduced working with my body to see if I could use it as a tool of investigation. My voice recites text by Nietzsche, Foucault and my own writings that I included as a voice-over to the imagery. My hand is captured working on a painting. I poured tar onto the canvas and rubbed it into the surface. In one scene, I walked on train tracks. I projected my grandfather's portrait onto my body. I am interested in how I can utilize my body as a tool to reactivate memory. Video allowed my body to implement the dialogue of my story, perform the story. Exploration through the body work presented gave immediacy to the probing questions I assessed. I wanted to see my film and my painting work together as a tool of investigation into my memory. The experiences of my past shaped and formed me as the human being I am today, the experience that can be seen as living practice in the memory of my self-constructed identity.

I investigated Foucault’s ideas concerning a variety of power structure models, which contributes to the dialogue my work embodies. I am interested in how people can usurp power and impose power over others.  I explored the rationale associated with people who are not necessarily in a position of power but who enable those in that role by assisting them. I was also interested in power structures inherent in the church and the power certain individuals have over others. I was interested in finding out about the psychological consequences of those who had been overpowered by others and what happens when a child’s boundaries are compromised, reflecting on my experience of childhood sexual abuse.

With my hands, I applied tar to the surfaces of canvas. The tar is dark black and I am attracted to the viscosity of this medium. Tar was the first medium I used when I started painting many years ago. I used tar when I also melted lead and poured it on metal. Lead is of major importance in Germanic mythology. I did not use lead in the new work, but its association with tar in my process development seemed to be enough. Working with tar helped me reflect on what it means to be German.

It was important to me to take heed of the recommendation of my professors to ‘own’ my work. I interpreted their suggestions to mean that my work practice would benefit from the incorporation of personal aspects of my own life, creating greater vitality and valitiy to the process and project. These personal revelations, a critical examination of my understanding of the world, and my self-perception developed through formative experiences would advance my ideas and working processes. After all the videos I had created during my first year of my MFA, I was encouraged to tell the story that only I can tell. I needed to give myself the time and space for intense reflection and investigation through my art practise, to see if I can work through the torment of residual memories which persist in inflicting anguish upon me. Recurring hateful, rejected memories assert themselves at inexplicable times.

Correlations between my childhood abuse which I endeavor to forget and the history of Germany, which many Germans are trying to erase from their memories exist in the film. Within my experience of being German, I have observed Germans deal with our collective memory by censoring and ignoring the consequence of our complex warring past rather than being vigilant, continually committed to knowledge, deliberate, recognise and concede our adverse history. In my film, I tore pages from a history book about the Third Reich, a time in Germany’s history that many Germans would prefer to eradicate from memory. Many Germans of my generation would like to expunge this part of our history and to put a leaden blanket onto the past. Yet, it is important to face and to discuss this past, to show how it was possible for the Nazis to come to power, in order to prevent its imposed trauma and desecration from ever happening again. Consistent dialogue will help prevent a repetition of their oppression and atrocities.

This work references my childhood memories of trauma that I attempted to forget for so many years - without success. Through research and the making of History as Personal Memory, I have learned that only by consciously working through memories, writing them down, finally articulating them in my work, can my healing start to take place. 

How does the impact of traumatic memories, about child sexual abuse correlate to the collective memory of

German Nazi atrocities? And is it possible to assess the misuse of power within the medium of film and painting? 

My German history and my personal history are not entirely parallel – they intersect. There is a correlation of power structures and dynamics, how power evolves and impacts. German Nazi mentality was committed to and succeeded by imposing doctrines through political advantage. The populace agreed to allow the Nazi perspective and the social upheaval to dominate their psyche, consenting to the Nazi role as nurturing caregivers of the German people. The dangerous and obscene became normalized. The familial custodian role was ruined by imposition of will and inaction against the violence of abuse, revoking responsibility for actions taken. Germans revoked their wills, subjugated themselves to complicit action and inaction. My grandparents in their complicity were not held accountable for their behavior. Immeasurable damage continues to impact many lives, including my own.

To tell my story, reveal my identity, share a complete and deliberate depiction of what I am concerned with, I needed to combine my German identity with childhood sexual abuse. The two are integral aspects of what only I can relate.

My previous work allowed me to situate my body work, my current owning of my story. My past work addressed what happened historically in Germany and discussed the different identities of German cities over time. Layers in previous work are reprocessed, advanced as a layering of mental states, as levels of intensity, as stratums that inform the viewer of how each cognizance is interrelated and valued as cumulative experiences.

I needed to research the qualities and implications of power structures, how they evolved, their progressive influences and their consequences. I started my second MFA year research with Michel Foucault’s publications (‘Wahnsinn und Gesellschaft’, ‘Der Wille zum Wissen’, ‘Discipline and Punish’). These books describe his thoughts with attention to various concepts of possible power structures. I explored writing pertaining to memory work, reading Frigga Haug’s books ‘Female Sexualisation’ and ‘Erinnerungsarbeit’ (Memory Work) and Simone Weils ‘Ueber die Ursachen von Freiheit und gesellschaftlicher Unterdrueckung’ (‘Reflexions sur les causes de la liberte et de l’oppression sociale’). Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery was recommended to me. Herman’s writing is the result of extensive studies with people who have experienced trauma in their childhood. I found this book to be especially supporting and reassuring, as I investigated and worked through memories of childhood abuse. I was able to be authentic, be cogent to strengthen my new work with this research.

Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge. He showed how this association results in a form of social control. Foucault asked many questions and presented opportunities to understand concepts from distinct, exacting perspectives. 

In Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish, he described power as something exercised, implemented through action and relationships. Power is an active relation rather than a possession or static state of affairs.

“...[power] is never appropriated in the way that wealth or a commodity can be appropriated. Power functions. Power is exercised through networks, and individuals do not simply circulate in those networks; they are in a position to both submit to and exercise this power. They are never the inert or consenting targets of power; they are always its relays. In other words, power passes through individuals. It is not applied to them.”  Foucault continued: “Power is relations; power is not a thing, it is a relationship between two individuals... such that one can direct the behavior of another or determine the behavior of another. Voluntarily determining it in terms of a number of objectives which are also one’s own”. Power is “the exercise of something that one could call government in a very wide sense of the term. One can govern a society, one can govern a group, a community, a family; one can govern a person. When I say ‘govern someone,’ it is simply in the sense that one can determine one’s behavior in terms of a strategy by resorting to a number of tactics.”[1]

I did not find all the answers to my questions in Foucault, but his inquiry into power dynamics and responses to his examination have helped me think about power structures in novel ways. He clarified how power evolves. When we think about the Nazis’ rise to power, for example, Foucault suggested that power relations do not operate only through repressions. He wrote, ‘In defining the effects of power as repression, one adopts a purely juridical conception of such power, one identifies power with a law which says no, power is taken above all as carrying the force of a prohibition. If power were never anything but repressive, ... do you really think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse.’  [2]
If power was only perceived as a negative, then people would not allow themselves to yield to power. They would not allow themselves to be manipulated by those in power or hand their power over often to negate their own responsibility. Power has a strong fascination. With regard to the Nazis especially, many uneducated people were happy to be able to openly despise the members of the Jewish community. There are people who love the sensation of hate. Foucault’s texts and discussions about power allowed me to discuss German history and structures of power under the Nazis. His ideas created the perfect bridge and associatory relationship for me to my work. Simultaneously, the impetus of reading Foucault allowed me to scrutinize my personal history.

I have used Foucault texts in my paintings and my films ‘A la recherche de Michel Foucault’ and ‘History as Personal Memory’. Please find further descriptions in the later chapters.

Since the mid-18th century industrialization, society has devised rules that impact how our lives should appear to others and how we should conduct ourselves in public and in private. Why has it become so difficult to question immorality, the mendaciousness of society, and abusive power structures? The church has had a malicious influence on society. It set up rules about what is morally right and wrong, yet forgives or simply ignores pedophiles, if they are upstanding members of the church? Reading Foucault is a very helpful tool when one wants to investigate power constructs and form questions about ethics within society, especially pertaining to social groups like the church who justify their existence by espousing heightened levels of morality.

Female Sexualisation by Frigga Haug explores the sexualization of women's bodies, charting the complex interplay of social, political and cultural forces which produce a normative 'femininity'. A series of projects which focus on concrete instances of sexualization led to a broader examination of the relationship between power and sexuality, the social and the psychological. 

In her book Erinnerungsarbeit (‘Memory Work’) Frigga Haug focusses on a social science methodology of using women's experiences to remove the blind spots in existing socialization theories. Her idea is that individuals build their personality during their life in a way that creates a coherent reality for them.

I needed to investigate if memory work and the structuring of my emotions and painful memories would help me analyze and mitigate my reactions to certain situations that trigger my present reactions to damaging memories. The work is not done by remembering the events of our past. When we ‘live historically’, we learn that we don't accept ourselves as we are now, but that we are ‘changeable’. [3]

It is very interesting to read concurrent thoughts about how we knit ourselves into or develop ourselves into societal constructs. For memory work, I learned that it is important and helpful to refer to myself in the third person. The distinguishable distance allows us to write and speak about what happened. Transporting ourselves into the third person allows us to ‘treat ourselves with more care’. [4]

I have learned that I can see the becoming of the person I am today as a deposition of layers from the events which happened to me in my life, my experiences. Revisiting the past is a kind of archaeology. One finds little scraps or memory fragments of past events and interactions from which I create a new architecture. Haug compared our childhood experiences to archeological layers. Every memory of experiences becomes layered and creates the person that I am today.[5] In my previous paintings I had often examined and incorporated layers, discussing the different identities Berlin had taken on over the course of time. 

We are used to maintaining our balance by suppressing bad memories as quickly as possible, by glossing over and forgetting the images of the past. When we consciously remember those images, we destabilize our being. At the same time, we can try to create a more ‘sustainable tissue’. [6]

Fear of conflict, anxiety, fearful vexation, inability to interfere, avoidances, anger, a paralyzing sadness, can all be related to traumatic events of my past that I have yet process meaningfully. [7]  What I remember has relevance for my social and my implicit personal identity that is fundamental to the identity I choose for myself.

Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror was recommended reading. I found this book very helpful as it showed me how to configure my research to include my past. Judith Herman’s instructive book showed me how to approach my memories and work through them.

Studies show that in the climate of profoundly disrupted relationships the child faces a formidable developmental task. She must find a way to form primary attachments to caretakers who are either dangerous or, from her perspective, negligent. She must find a way to develop a sense of basic trust and safety with caretakers who are untrustworthy. Also, the child feels that she has been ‘abandoned to her fate. This abandonment is often resented more keenly than the abuse itself’.[8]  This was important for me to learn, because I  struggled with this resentment towards a close relation in my family whilst I was growing up.

Survivors tend to lack the verbal and social skills for resolving conflict. The survivor must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. She is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. The survivor is also at great risk of repeated victimization in adult life. Survivors of childhood abuse are far more likely to be victimized or to harm themselves than to victimize other people. Perhaps because of their deeply inculcated self-loathing, survivors seem most disposed to direct their aggression at themselves.[9]  I learned that when survivors recognize the origins of their psychological suffering in an abusive childhood environment, they no longer need attribute them to an inherent defect in the self. This shift in perception allows the creation of new meaning, regarding past experiences and a new, unstigmatized identity.

An invitation to show my work in an exhibition entitled History and Personal Memory curated by Wendy Welch at the Slide Room Gallery in Victoria from February 16^th to March 12 in 2018 pushed me to use my memory and my own experience combined with a collective memory of the German past.

I question morals. When I was a child, I already wondered why it was possible for people to go to church and have their sins forgiven. People who sexually abuse children should be jailed. Charges must be pressed against perpetrators and they need to be trialed and incarcerated. Growing up in Germany after the war meant living in a society where sexual child abuse was a bagatelle. My work relates to the current public debate that concerns sexual abuse and misconduct. Because public education of potential victims is their most viable defense, my story serves as pre-emptive protection. My work contributes to the end of stigmatisation of sexual abuse victims, demonstrates that severe penalisation/punishment for perpetrators in our justice systems is essential to impede future sexual abuse.

Dissemination of this research is part of my process of ‘coming out’.  Open discussion of my abuse and the attendant relationship with the German social phenomena of forgetting and editing history will form a significant component in the public presentation of my work.

Paintings

The dimensions of my canvases were too big for a studio setting. I painted in the yard and used sticks from the forest instead of brushes. I responded to the tar with black oil and acrylic paint and charcoal. I focused on the process of surface transformation and activation. Painting with black helped me to get to the essence of the themes that would occupy me. Black, the absence of color, black the color of tar, of the darkest dark, representing black dark memories. Tar is the blackened violation manifest, made obvious within the painting. Its viscosity gives the thickening of memories physical presence. Stubborn memories as tar bonds to the painting surfaces. Thinking about my own past and personal memory was and is difficult and there is a reason why I have not talked about my past.

Tar is a primal material. It resembles, and is reminiscent of a viscous darkness, sticky, a vague, oppressive residue of tremendous overpowering despondency that replicates the mindfulness of being German, of the cognizance and response to childhood sexual abuse. Resurrecting the use of tar for a series of work established a poignant revelation that addressed how I can convey my own story in an abstracted environment. The paintings attest to my ability in addressing the challenges of my German identity in combination with my pain of sexual abuse. Non-verbally and without reference to any specific features, it has been possible to embody the essential attributes of my story whilst revealing new personal insights and public information in the process.

I also utilized black paint and charcoal in my paintings. My choice of using black acrylic and black oil paint and black charcoal, its distinguishing color with tar, was first to drain color from my palate. Pouring black tar, my hand manipulation of that material was also important as a treatment. Black absorbs light, dominates with its absorption. Black assimilates light. Black has potent authoritative power as censure, of dominance because it minimizes any other color.

The painting’s title is ‘Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims’.

The text in stencils says: ‘To speak is to invite the stigma that attaches to victims’.

Tar, acrylic, oil, pastel and charcoal on canvas,

54 by 108 inches, 137 cm x 274 cm,

2017

These qualities respond to dominance enacted on me as a child, as German political authorities dominated my social history, as being a sexual abuse survivor dominates my psyche. Black is the strange absence of the familiar, being separated from my homeland. It is the absence of innocence, its irrevocable death. Black is the death of millions by the Nazis that permeates my association with Germany. Black is the complex authority of my spirit as a survivor, the elegance of my grief.

In this painting ‘Atrocities refuse to be buried’ I had originally intended to paint a landscape with a grandfather and a child (bottom left quarter) walking towards the horizon. Once I drew this image, I had to let go of that representation. I preferred to add a big black cloud filled with words that I would cover with tar. I question morality. I quote Marx in my text in the painting: ‘Wo Moral auftaucht, haben die Menschen die Zustaendigkeit ueber den Zusammenhang ihrer Handlungen verloren’,  (Wherever morality emerges as the absolute societal ideal, it means people have lost touch with their inner conscience and have abdicated or lost a sense of personal responsibility for their actions; they become vulnerable to surrendering their volition to the ideological power that presents itself as the authority and arbiter of morality.)[10]

When I was a child I already was wondering why it was possible for people to go to church and have their sins forgiven. People who sexually abuse children should go to jail. Charges must be pressed against perpetrators and they need to be trialed and sentenced.

Wo Moral auftaucht, haben die Menschen die Zustaendigkeit ueber den Zusammenhang ihrer Handlungen verloren’

Tar, acrylic, oil, pastel and charcoal on canvas

 8’x11.5’, 96 x 138 inches, 244 x 351 cm,

2017

The result of this painting process was the capture of emotional tenacity tempered with vulnerability. Abstraction allowed the evidence of the survival process, demonstrating how I exist as a German artist who thrives despite being a post-war German and a sexual abuse survivor. I was able to produce what I feel in paint, create abstracted feelings that are potent and universal, those of survival in adversity. I was able to achieve this without the context of mapping place or time. My use of text on painted surfaces allows for the clutter of thoughts to be observable, show disorientation as I have felt perplexed in the overpowering throws of social injustice and abuse.

My painting previously dealt with the cogent evidential aspects of urban transformation due to politics, ethical changes, war and my lived experiences in relation to German cities that have formed my identity. Painting presides as a directive force, allowing the deepest and most challenging feelings to become visual demonstrations of impenetrable sensations.

I started to introduce text as a response to the content in some of the paintings.  The red, hand-written text originates from texts in my childhood journal, my reflection of the non-existence of god. With stencils, I responded to my childhood writing with texts about power structures I selected from Foucault’s writing. Text seemed like the clearest means of response for me at the time I created this work. Any of the former shapes and elements in my previous painting work did not seem to correspond to my current concerns at all. I needed to develop the essence that instigated my current approach to my work. My past maneuvered me in this direction and I needed to resolve those concerns.

The more I thought about how I could possibly approach my work, the more it became clear that Foucault created the perfect connection for me. His texts and ideas about power allow me to discuss German history and structures of power under the Nazis. At the same time, utilizing Foucault allows me to reference my personal history. Die Macht als produktives Netz. Es ist eine intentionale Macht, sie schafft etwas anstatt etwas zu nehmen: Die Machtbeziehungen sind gleichzeitig intentional und nicht subjectiv. [11] (Power as a productive net. It is an intentional power which creates something instead of taking away. The relations of power are intentional and non-subjective at the same time).

Allgegenwart der Macht (Omnipresence of power)

Tar, acrylic, oil, charcoal and pastel on canvas

54 x 108 inches

2017

I realized that I had allowed pink and skin toned oil sticks and pastel colors to enter the canvas. It was the only color that worked for me and I chose it unconsciously. Maybe, it stands for the loss of a secure childhood.

The title of this painting is ‘The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable’.

This is the text I wrote with pastel on top of the paint, to which I then responded with a text in stencils, ‘Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried’. Both are quotes from Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery. This book was very helpful for me in my research about my past and for the creation of the film and paintings. It is challenging to put some of the experiences into my own words.

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable

Tar, acrylic, oil, pastel and charcoal on canvas

54 by 108 inches

2017

This painting is entitled ‘We need to understand the past in order to reclaim the present and the future. An understanding of psychological trauma begins with rediscovering history’[12] This is in reference to Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery.

This quotation was the response to the other text contained in the painting ‘Reiss Dich zusammen’ (‘Pull yourself together’). A sentence I would hear from my mother when I said I did not want to go to my grandparents’ house. Why did she not protect me? Did she not wonder why I did not speak? Why did she not want to know my reasons for not wanting to go there?

A whole life is altered and damaged by childhood abuse. My whole being is a consequence of what happened to me in my childhood. My readings really helped me to work through this theme.

We need to understand the past in order to reclaim the present and the future. An understanding of psychological trauma begins with rediscovering history

8’x11.5’, 96 x 138 inches, 244 x 351 cm

Tar, acrylic, oil, pastel and charcoal on canvas

2017

‘Thus, even those children who manage to develop the semblance of a social life experience it as inauthentic. The abused child is isolated from other family members as well as from the wider social world. She perceives daily, not only that an adult in her intimate world is dangerous to her, but also that the other adults who are responsible for her care do not protect her. The reasons for this protective failure are in some sense immaterial to the child victim, who experiences it at best as a sign of indifference and at worst as complicit betrayal. From the child’s point of view, the parent disarmed by secrecy should have known; if she cared enough, she would have found out. The parent disarmed by intimidation should have intervened; if she cared enough, she would have fought. The child feels that she has been abandoned to her fate, and this abandonment is often resented more keenly than the abuse itself’. [13]

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma

Tar, acrylic, oil, pastel and charcoal on canvas

8’x11.5’, 96 x 138 inches, 244 x 351 cm

2018

The ‘Omnipresence of Power’ series contains two further paintings incorporating text.

In correlation with the first painting of this series, I incorporated my own childhood journal texts into these three canvases with pastel crayons and oil sticks. Subsequently, I overlaid a text by Michel Foucault with stencils onto those words.

‘Wo es Macht gibt, gibt es Widerstand. Und doch, oder vielmehr deswegen liegt der Wiederstand niemals ausserhalb der Macht.’[14] (Where there is power, there is resistance. That is why resistance is never outside of power).

Die Machtbeziehungen sind gleichzeitig intentional und nicht subjektiv, 

Tar, acrylic, oil, charcoal and pastel on canvas

54 x 108 inches

2017

With this new work, I wanted to combine my film and painting work. I used the same elements of research in both the film and the paintings. I also show the paintings and the actual paint application in the film.

‘Die Frage lautet nicht, wie Macht sich manifestiert, sondern wie sie ausgeuebt wird’. (The Question is not how power manifests itself, but how power is exercised).[15]

Die Frage lautet nicht wie Macht sich manifestiert, sondern wie sie ausgeübt wird

Tar, acrylic, oil, charcoal and pastel on canvas

54 x 108 inches

2017

Tar is the promise of slow and deliberate divergences from its intense blackness to grey smudges. Black tar is the peculiar exactness of substantial trouble. Tar is consequence of oozing supposition, the dark residue of authoritative action, of power abuse that personifies the maker, suffocates the abuse. Tar is the symbol of residual pain embodied in the painting. Tar is the presence of silence, its disturbance. Applying tar is a performance of ambiguous, dangerous corporeal sensations made visible without sluggish reason to divert its capture.

Sometimes the child is silenced by violence or by a direct threat of murder

Tar, acrylic, oil, pastel and charcoal on canvas

8’x11.5’, 96 x 138 inches, 244 x 351 cm

2018

History as Personal Memory - film

I created this film after receiving an invitation from Wendy Welch, the curator of an exhibition with the same title. The exhibition was installed at the Slide Room Gallery in Victoria in February and March 2018. I connected work about my German identity, my personal memory and painting to a medium new to my practice – film. I learned that chronology is not necessary for developing a storyline. I found that rhythm influences transition and delivery of visuals. I found the impact of my own voice can connect disparate imagery. Combining memory with power constructs was possible through editing strategies, pace variances and juxtaposition of still and overlaid images. Video was a familiar and appropriate media to demonstrate the importance of utilizing my body, conduct body related experiments to relate narratives, give impact to the content. Video editing allowed moving images, referential editing, imagery juxtapositions which were conductive to telling my story. I was able to orchestrate the convergence of imagery and sound to communicate my narrative.

My film History as Personal Memory is a self-portrait. Informed by my German heritage which entails my experience of and my insight into German collective memory. An investigation of power structures, the film attests to my experience of homeland, the overstepping of my personal boundaries, and relates to own personal memories. Importantly, the film includes a portrayal of the trauma I carry because I contend with sexual abuse in my childhood.

The film begins with images of the destroyed city of Berlin which were filmed following Germany’s capitulation in May 1945. I overlaid these images with images of my paintings. In my painting work, I often create layers and juxtapose images of the past with images of today, to discuss identities of then and now. The overlay rationale is extended in my film.

I read a poem by Nietzsche about Heimat, homeland. I am questioning what homeland represents to me. I am German and live far away from my former home. I chose to leave my home country, even though I would never want to deny my German identity. It is part of my being. However, I chose to live abroad, in Canada. Living abroad allows me to deal effectually with events that happened to me in my past. In the film, I read from Nietzsche’s poem ‘Abschied’[16], where he has a conversation with himself. In the first part of the poem (which I am reading in the video), Nietzsche describes the view of the lonely wanderer in the winter who is without his homeland. The wanderer remembers his lost homeland. In Nietzsche’s answer to his desire, he denies that he might be longing for his home, in the ‘stupid happiness of the main room’, which he left as a free spirit. He asserts that it is far more important to always remain a free spirit, than to have a home land. 

Abschied or Die Kraehen schreien or Vereinsamt

Die Krähen schrein 

Und ziehen schwirren Flugs zur Stadt: 

Bald wird es schnein. - 

Wohl dem, der jetzt noch - Heimat hat! 

Nun stehst du starr,

Schaust rückwärts, ach! wie lange schon!

Was bist du Narr

Vor Winters in die Welt entflohn?

Die Welt - ein Tor

Zu tausend Wüsten stumm und kalt!

Wer das verlor,

Was du verlorst, macht nirgends halt.

Nun stehst du bleich,

Zur Winter-Wanderschaft verflucht,

Dem Rauche gleich,

Der stets nach kältern Himmeln sucht.

Flieg, Vogel, schnarr

Dein Lied im Wüstenvogel-Ton!

Versteck, du Narr,

Dein blutend Herz in Eis und Hohn!

Die Krähen schrein

Und ziehen schwirren Flugs zur Stadt:

Bald wird es schnein, -

Weh dem, der keine Heimat hat

Lonely

The crows caw

and go with zipping wings to the city:

soon it will be snowing.

Happy is he who now yet has a homeland!

Now you stand numbly,

gazing backward, ah! for how long already?

Why, you fool,

did you flee into the world as Winter approached?

The world - a door

to a thousand wastelands silent and cold!

He who has lost

what you have lost, never stops anywhere.

Now you stand pallid,

cursed to wander in the winter,

like smoke

that is always seeking colder skies.

Fly, bird, rasp out

your song in the melody of a bird of the wastes!

Hide, you fool,

your bleeding heart in ice and sneers!

The crows caw

and go with zipping wings to the city:

soon it will be snowing.

Woe is he who has no homeland!

While I recite the poem in my film, I project images of my home land, the German landscape. I question what my homeland now represents for me.

I asked my sister Regine to talk about our whole family on camera, discuss dozens of images of our family tree, on both sides of our heritage. For the film, I selected the image of my grandfather, Karl Sattler, who was a member of the NSDAP and a Hauptmann in WWII and in charge of aerial bombardments. His image is on screen while my sister’s voice speaks about him. This is the first time in my life that I am approaching this theme. While it is extremely difficult, I find the process somewhat healing because I am finally addressing something that has been tormenting me, excruciatingly since my childhood.

Karl Sattler war geboren in Lochhausen bei Muenchen.

Seine Eltern waren der Schulrat Sattler und sein Frau,

sie wiederum war eine geborene Lauterbach, sie war

die Tochter eines Kunstmalers, die sind hier zu sehen,

die haben irgendwo in Straubing gewohnt. Und dies

hier ist ein Bild auf dem man sieht dass Carl Sattler

was a Hauptmann during WWII und ein ueberzeugtes

Parteimitglied gewesen ist.

Karl Sattler was born in Lochhausen near Munich.

His parents were the school principals. His mother’s

maiden name was Lauterbach and she was the

daughter of an artist. You can see them here, they

lived in Straubing. And in this photo, you can see

that Carl Sattler was a Captain in WWII. He was a

loyal member of the Nazi Party.

I worked with texts by Michel Foucault again in this film. Foucault’s philosophy and his discussions about power encouraged me to discuss my own past, hint at what happened to me in my childhood, while simultaneously deliberating Germany’s Nazi past.

I am interested in the psychological consequences of those who had been overpowered by others and what happens if a child’s boundaries get transgressed. When you don’t learn how to protect yourself in your childhood, as an adult you constantly struggle with how to protect yourself. It is discomforting to find a respectful and effective way to reject those who come too close to me and do not respect my privacy and necessary mind space.

Die Macht ist nicht eine Institution, ist nicht

eine Struktur, ist nicht eine Maechtigkeit

einiger Maechtiger, die Macht ist der Name

den man einer komplexen strategischen

Situation in einer Gesellschaft gibt.

Der strategische Feind is Faschismus…..der

Faschismus in uns allen, in unseren Koepfen,

der uns die Macht lieben laesst, und uns das

ersehnen laesst, was uns domininiert und

uns ausbeutet.

Die Frage lautet nicht, wie Macht sich mani-

festiert, sondern wie sie ausgeuebt wird.

Wo es Macht gibt, gibt es Wiederstand.

Und doch oder vielmehr deswegen liegt

der Wiederstand niemals ausserhalb der Macht.

Sobald die Machtbeziehungen erstarren,

und sich als unveraenderlich erweisen,

tritt der Zustand der Herrschaft ein.

Power is not an institution. It is not a structure.

Power is the name that is given to a complex

strategic situation in a society.

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism

in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior,

the fascism that causes us to love power, to

desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.

The question is not, how power manifests itself,

but how it is exerted.

Where there is power, there is resistance. The

resistance is never outside of power.

As soon as the relations of power solidify and

become unchangeable, the statues of a regime arise. [17]

Foucault's theories have a pervasive theme – the affiliation of power and knowledge and how these relate to social control. Foucault’s multifaceted questions open doors to look at concepts from different perspectives.

In theory, people can only have power over others because at one point in time, the victims allowed the perpetrators to have power over them. In my case, as a helpless, vulnerable child, I was told that I would be killed if I told anyone about the sexual abuse. The abuse would not have been possible without the enabling help of my grandmother, who ‘disappeared’ for an hour every day while it happened and while my grandparents where in charge of watching me.  I told my mother I did not want to go to the grandparents’ house, but I was told to pull myself together: ‘Reiss Dich zusammen’.

I project the Foucault text, overlaying my voice during a scene with train tracks. Recently, I only travel by train when in Germany. Train travel allows contemplation about Germany and its landscape. I associate trains and train tracks with the Holocaust, which represents the darkest element of Germany’s history. Walking on train tracks, for me, is a means of meditation about how possibly to come to terms with addressing the German past.

I have also included elements of my short film, ‘Grenzueberschreitung’. This film is about what can happen when personal boundaries were not respected in childhood. I utilized my own writing about that subject. I filmed the visuals at the former East/West border in Berlin between the former GDR and BDR, at the remnants of the Berlin Wall.

Immer, wenn Eltern die Intigritaet des Kindes beschaedigen,

dann haben sie die Grenzen des Kindes ueberschritten.

Wenn das Kind satt ist und zum Aufessen genoetigt wird,

ist das eine Grenzueberschreitung. Wer oft erlebt hat,

dass die eigenen Grenzen ueberschritten wurden, dem

faellt es oft schwer die eigenen Grenzen wahrzunehmen.

Wann habe ich genug davon?

Wann tritt mir jemand zu nahe?

Wann stellt mir jemand zu direkte Fragen?

Always, when parents hurt the integrity

of a child, they have overstepped the

boundaries of a child’s welfare. A child

that often experiences that someone

oversteps its boundaries has a hard time

identifying its boundaries in later life.

When is it enough?

When is someone offending and

hurting me? When is someone asking

questions that are too direct? 

I projected the voice of Holocaust survivor, Dr. Peter Gary (whom I interviewed in Victoria, Canada in 2016) onto right wing populists’ and extremists’ marches that occurred weekly in Dresden, demonstrations against the acceptance of war refugees from Syria. I used my own voice reading poems by Holocaust Survivor Primo Levi and projected those sounds onto images of burning refugee homes in Germany today.

The film includes images of high ranking Nazis that I am showing together with my grandfather and, together with original sounds of the bombardments of Berlin in 1945, with a speaker, on the radio, the Deutschlandfunk. The speaker announcing the bombardment proclaimed that there is a battalion of war planes over Hannover at that moment and that the bombardment of Berlin would happen shortly. The voice said he would come back later but all one hears are the sounds of sirens.  Then, the sound of the bombardment is heard.

Without the actions of the Nazis and their politics of aggression, the war, the death of 65 million people as well as the destruction of Europe and many places outside of Europe would not have happened.

My film addresses my history, my own childhood experiences and a history of Germany, that we try to forget, try to erase from our memory. I am tearing pages from a history book about the Third Reich, a time in Germany’s history that one would like to have never existed. Germans would have liked to erase this part of our history and to put a leaden blanket onto our past. Yet, it is important to face and to discuss this past, to discuss how it was possible for the Nazis to come to power, to prevent a scenario like this from ever happening again.

I have also interwoven my short film ‘Gott ist tot’. The title refers to Nietzsche’s ‘Zarathustra’ and ‘Die froehliche Wissenschaft’ texts. I read and recorded my text about why I think there cannot be a god. I discovered this idea in my childhood while I was counting the lines in the carpet during sermons in church on Sunday mornings. My grandfather went there every Sunday to have his sins forgiven. While I was suffering because of his actions, I asked god to help me. There was never an answer for me. Just darkness.

As a young adult, I discovered Hegel’s thoughts and discussion about the death of god. For me, at that time, it was important to find writers who would confirm for me that there was no god. Hegel wrote about the great pain of knowing that God is dead 'The pure concept, however, or infinity, as the abyss of nothingness in which all being sinks, must characterize the infinite pain, which previously was only in culture historically and as the feeling on which rests modern religion, the feeling that God Himself is dead, purely as a phase, but also as no more than just a phase, of the highest idea.’[18]

Als ich klein war, hab ich die Rillen im Teppich gezaehlt, in der Kirche.

Ich hab gehofft, die Predigt waere bald vorbei. Ich wusste schon, und

ich war vielleicht 6 oder 7, dass es keinen Gott geben kann. Kann es

gerecht sein, jemanden, der andere verletzt die Suenden zu vergeben?

Kann es gerecht sein, dass einem als Kind so viel boeses angetan wird?

Wo bist du Gott fuer mich? Bitte mach, dass ich nicht mehr im Bett des

Grossvaters liegen muss, dass ich mich anfassen lassen muss, dass ich

seinen alten Penis anfassen und in den Mund nehmen muss. Wo bist

du Gott fuer mich? Ich hab gebetet und um Hilfe gebeten aber er hat

mich nicht gehoert. Es kann keinen Gott geben. Ich weiss es ganz genau.

Wenn es einen Gott gaebe, wuerde er nicht zulassen, dass Kinder leiden

und sterben. Wohin treibt die Menschheit, die sich erklaeren moechte,

dass Gott das fuer uns tut. Wie will e runs erloesen. Sieht niemand,

dass wir auf den Abgrund hintreiben. Will niemand aufstehen und

es anhalten. Wir, wir sind die alleinig Verantwortlichen fuer unser Tun.

When I was little, I counted the lines in the carpet, in church.

I was hoping the sermon would come to an end soon.

I knew already, and I was maybe 6 or 7, that there cannot be a god.

Can it be just that someone who hurts others, gets his sins forgiven?

Can it be just that a child must endure such horrible things?

Where are you god for me? Please change my life so that I do

not have to be in the bed of the grandfather anymore, that I

must be touched by him, that I must hold his penis and put

it into my mouth. Where are you god for me? I have prayed

and asked for help, but he did not hear me. There cannot be

a god, I know that with certainty. If there was a god, he would

not allow children to suffer and die. Where is mankind drifting?

Who can explain that god is doing all that suffering for us? How

does he want to redeem us? Does no one see that we are drifting

 towards the precipice? Does no one want to stand up and stop

all this insanity? We, we are the only ones who are responsible

for our actions and all insanity.

While I am reading this text, I show images of that church carpet. Also, I include images of my painting with my hands on one of my works and am showing a cross with several thousand nails that I built.

At the end of my film, I leave Berlin. My departure is a way for me to dissolve my problems from the past and to cope with my memories. I leave because I must go to find space for myself to breathe and to feel safe. The ending of the film shows images of my departure from Berlin and going to a different place. In the film, I always travel from east to west, eventually leaving the city by plane in that direction. Ontologically a story unfolds from left to right and graphically I leave the city from right to left, against the grain of my written languages, against the grain how I read or enter a painting. This imagery is my metaphor for how I deal with all of this, which is to go away from my past to the present.

Many, many good memories connect me to Germany. I will not list them all here. Walks on Sundays under the grey autumn sky, the smell of spring on hikes in the Fichtelgebirge, the beautiful landscapes in the country side, longing for my sister and wonderful dear friends, create a nostalgia and heaviness in my heart. Leaving for me is resolving my emotional weight from the past, but leaving is also very sad every time. I like the words written about leaving by the French poet and novelist Edmond Haraucourt (1856-1941), Partir c’est mourir un peu. ‘To leave is to die a little bit’. Leaving is to die for what one loves. One leaves behind a little of oneself at any hour – any place.

I wanted to use my film and painted work collectively as a tool of investigation into my memory work. The experiences of my past shaped and formed me as the being I am today, the experience that can be seen as a lived practise in the memory of a self-constructed identity.

Erinnerungen, tragen uns durchs Leben,

durch diese Erinnerungen und Erfahrungen,

die wir sammeln auf dem Weg, werden wir

als Menschen geformt. Nie werde ich in der

Lage sein, die Erlebnisse meiner Kindheit

von mir abzustreifen, ich glaube, dass sie

mein ganzes Leben gepraegt haben. Meine

Unsicherheit, mein Minderwertigkeitsgefuehl,

mein Schuld- und Schamgefuehl, alles lag

unter der Oberflaeche, bis ich endlich, erst

vor wenigen Jahren, in der Lage war, diese

Erfahrung in eine Erkenntnis umzuwandeln,

dass ich meine Art zu sein als eine Tatsache,

als ein Geschenk annehme.

Our memories carry us through our lives,

those memories and our experiences that

we encounter on the way, form us as beings.

Never will I be able to shed the experiences

in my childhood, I believe they have formed

and shaped my whole life. My insecurity, my

self-consciousness, my feeling of guilt and shame,

all those lay under the surface until I was finally able,

only several years ago to transform them into

the acceptance of my way of being

as a given, a gift

The Vimeo link to my video in German: https://vimeo.com/241878832

And with English voice-over: https://vimeo.com/244770745

Length: 8:51 min

The film received Official Selection in Reserve status at the German United Film Festival in Berlin in January 2018

‘A la recherche de Michel Foucault’ – film

The idea for this film started when I was trying to find a connection between my personal past and some of the writers and artists who had been of utmost importance to me in my life: Schopenhauer, Hesse, Proust, Foucault, Kiefer and Nietzsche.

I knew the starting point for my film had to be Berlin and my connection to the city.

During my studies of French and economics in the early 1980s, I discovered Michel Foucault within translation work. At that time, I was interested in thoughts about power and how people impose power over others. I was interested in the psychological consequences of those who had been overpowered by others and what happens when a child’s boundaries are compromised.

When you are unable to learn how to protect yourself in your childhood then, as an adult you have a constant struggle determining how to protect yourself. This ongoing effort to find a respectful and effective way to reject those who come too close to me and do not respect my privacy and necessary mind space is disconcerting.

I collaborated with Farid Abdulbaki from Syria, an artist friend on this film. I discovered our common interest in Foucault, especially Foucault’s absorbing discussions about power. We have both experienced non-consensual domination by others in power. Farid is a Sufi and I admire his ability to forgive.

Farid was interested in Foucault because he relates Foucault’s ideas to the situation in his country through the Assad dynasty responsible for his socialist father’s years of imprisonment. Farid’s father was killed at the beginning of the Civil War in 2012.

This film is a singularly abstract approach to both our interpretations of Foucault. 

When I read Foucault, I discovered that he asks a range of questions and formulates how questions should be asked differently to give alternative perspectives about provocative ideas.

I abstracted the film to be less literal. I used images that have meaning for me. The German words I speak are excerpts from Foucault passages and examples of my interpretation of power. 

The title A la recherche de Michel Foucault, refers to one of my favourite books, A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922). In Proust’s novel, he recounts the experiences of someone talking about his memories of childhood and youth, learning about art, participating in society and falling in love. The most fascinating theme in Proust’s work are the stories of involuntary memory.

Involuntary memory, also known as involuntary autobiographical memory, is a subcomponent of memory which occurs when cues encountered in everyday life evoke recollections of the past without conscious effort. One example of involuntary memory in this novel by Proust, is the ‘Episode of the Madeleine’. Eating a madeleine activated an otherwise forgotten memory of his childhood. I have strong, comprehensive memories related to smells which take me back to experiences of my childhood and youth. It was important to me that I made reference to Proust and his book as a source of inspiration for this work.

The music in my film refers to the fictional music in Proust’s Novel, the Vinteuil Sonata which also triggered involuntary memory. The Chilean composer Jorge Arriagada recreated Vinteuil’s violin sonata for the film Le Temps Retrouve (Time Regained) for Raoul Ruiz’s film from 1999.

A la recherche de Michel Foucault is a 7:56 min short film: https://vimeo.com/233722820

by Ira Hoffecker in collaboration with Regine Forster, Farid Abdulbaki and Lara Hoffecker

Conclusion

The process of experimenting with how it is possible to work through memories and come to terms with my past is the central tenet of this new body of work. I have achieved a degree of self-confidence through creating this work. I learned to trust the value of telling my own story. I learned how to show the qualities of my story that best achieve a significance that is of universal merit, that is relatable to others. My confidence exists because I have produced an explicit public disclosure of my abuse.

I gained the knowledge inherent in using media to incorporate aspects of my story that are specific to those media. I learned that I can utilize my body to encompass a range of ideas, concerns that would otherwise be minimized or deficiently addressed. Recording acts of personal consequence was cathartic.  Research and exploration, creation of this new work and incorporated transgression of boundaries, are new territories within my creative practice. My research enabled a comparative understanding of the challenges many Germans wrestle with regarding confrontation of their past. I learned that power abuse and its affects can be examined within the context of personal stories.

As Frigga Haug suggested, once we publicly acknowledge the events of our lives, ‘wriggling free of the constraints of purely private and individual experiences, from a state of modest insignificance we enter a space in which we can take ourselves seriously.’  [19] I vehemently agree with Frigga Haug when she said: ‘Thus writing itself became a practice of active chance, the initial step away from an attitude of suffering and resignation, the first attempt to acquire knowledge by bringing to light our memories and displaying them to others. Writing forced us to develop a more consistent approach to our perception of ourselves’.[20] I realize that by articulating my memories in my work, by stating the facts aloud in my films and by writing the words that describe my trauma directly onto my paintings, I discover different means of interpreting myself in the world.

I could not censor my childhood memories of the experiences of sexual abuse that have so severely impacted my life. As with German history, we need to confront, challenge complacency to prevent the repeat of historical atrocities. I needed to face my past personal pain. I know now that the grappling with my dire living memories, healing must include mindful restatement. The healing process underpins my written, painted, verbalized experiences in conjunction with the use of my body in film.

I was always scared to talk about what happened to me, but now that I am making it public, I feel liberated and more confident. In the recent exhibition, History as Personal Memory in Victoria in February and March 2018 I had a chance to bring my work to the public and talk about it. While I was creating this new body of work, I did not have a viewer in mind. I did not think about how the work could possibly be perceived. When I started to show my video to my co-students I said that I hope my work would not disturb anyone. After the experience of the exhibition now, I am very happy about all the feedback I received. Only the viewer owns the interpretation of the work, but of course I would hope to engage the viewer and leave enough space for everyone’s own perception and interpretation.

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Schopenhauer explained his theory that nature in general, which includes humans (the binary description of people as men and women is utilized) is the expression of an insatiable ‘will to life’.; Schopenhauer theorised that the truest understanding of the world comes through art. He thought the only lasting good could exist through ascetic renunciation. Unique in Western philosophy for his affinity with Eastern philosophies, Schopenhauer influenced philosophers, writers, and composers including Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Wagner, Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, and Samuel Beckett.

Weedon, Chris. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, Basil Blackwell Ltd., UK, 1987. ISBN: 0-631-15069-2

This book offered an accessible and clear introduction to poststructuralist theory, focused on questions of language, subjectivity and power.

Weil, Simone. Über die Ursachen von Freiheit und gesellschaftlicher Unterdrückung. diaphanes Publishing, Zürich, Switzerland, 2012. ISBN: 978-3-03734-236-7.

In 1934, due to radicalization of political systems in Europe, Simone Weil reflected on the causes of the widespread unease. She wrote to understand why people live in an unjust society in which the individual could not be free and content. She concluded that German society became willing instruments of the domination they produce themselves. The price of freedom and personal responsibility, according to Weil, is a price no one should be willing to pay.

Biography

Ira Hoffecker is a German-Canadian artist who has resided and maintained her art practice in Victoria, Canada since 2004. She is an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists.

As of August 2018 Ira will hold an MFA degree in Creative Practice though Transart Institue, New York, N.Y and Plymouth University in England. Previously, Ira studied art at the Vancouver Island School of Art in Victoria, Canada where she obtained a Diploma of Fine Arts in 2013. Ira achieved a First Class B.A. (Honours) in Fine Art from the University of Gloucestershire, England in 2015.

Ira has exhibited in solo, duo and group exhibitions in England, Canada and Germany. Her recent exhibitions in 2015 and 2016 include five solo exhibitions in Abingdon/Oxford, England, in Berlin and Hof, Germany, and in Vancouver and Edmonton, Canada. Ira has also participated in duo exhibitions in London, England and in Northrhine-Westfalia, Germany during the past few years.

In 2015, Ira was one of 20 UK graduates whose work was shortlisted for the Graduate Art Prize in London. She won the first prize in the juried ‘Abstract Show 2015’ in Vancouver with her painting Alexanderplatz VIII. Her Camp Moschendorf II painting was shortlisted for the John Moore Painting Prize 2016. The painting was exhibited at the 2016 Liverpool Biennial.

Ira’s film Meanwhile in La La Land was chosen for the Official Selection at the Manchester Film Festival 2018 and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Back in the Box Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2017. Her video History as Personal Memory was chosen for the Official Selection in reserve for the German United Film Festival in Berlin in 2018.

Education

2016 - 2018   Transart Institute, New York, NY, USA accredited though Plymouth University, England

                         M.F.A. Creative Practice – August 2018

2014 – 2015   University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, England,

             First Class Honours B.A. in Fine Art - June 2015

2013 – 2014   University of Victoria, Canada, Design, Printmaking, Sculpture and Media Technologies

2012 - 2013    Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada, Aboriginal B.C. Art History

2007 – 2013   Vancouver Island School of Art, Victoria, Canada,

             Diploma of Fine Arts

1981-84,85-86 Sprachen- und Dolmetscher Institut, Munich Germany, French and Economics,

Exhibitions ( I still need to edit this section)

Solo Exhibitions

2019

           - History as Personal Memory. The Front Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. May 2019

           - History as Personal Memory. Zack Gallery in Vancouver BC Canada. June/July 2019

2017

            -Berlin Identities. Zack Gallery in Vancouver BC Canada. June

2016

            -Urban Identities. The Front Gallery. Edmonton AB Canada, October/November

            -Urbane Welten. Kunstraum Tapir.  Berlin Germany. February

2015

           -Urbane Welten. Ira Hoffecker. Freiheitshalle. Hof Germany, October to December           

           -Urban Settings. Sewell Centre Art Gallery, Radley College, Abington/Oxford, September

2014  

            -Urban Layers. 1580 Gallery. Victoria BC Canada. June

            -Urban Layers. Upstairs Gallery. University of Victoria, Victoria BC Canada. March

2013

            -Urban Reflections. The Front Gallery. Edmonton AB Canada, October/November

            -Urban Reflections. The Gallery at Matticks. Victoria BC Canada. July

            -Urban Reflections. The Sooke Harbour House Art Gallery. Sooke BC Canada. April

            -Urban Reflections. Axis Contemorary Art Gallery. Calgary AB Canada.

2012

            -The Gallery at Mattick’s. Victoria BC Canada. May

            -The Gallery at the MAC. Victoria BC Canada. October-December

2011  

 - Ira Hoffecker – New Paintings. The Sooke Harbour House Art Gallery. Sooke BC Canada. February

 - Urban Settings. The Front Gallery. Edmonton AB Canada, May

 - Urban Settings. Dales Gallery. Victoria BC Canada. October

2010    

 - Ira Hoffecker. The Gallery at Matticks. Victoria BC Canada. January

Duo Exhibitions

2016              'URBAN SETTINGS' GALERIE HOFFMANN CONTEMPORARY ART in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck, Germany,

                       March 6TH to April 16th

2015            ‘JOURNEY ELSEWHERE’ with British artist Abbie Phillips, at MENIER GALLERY, LONDON, April 2015

2012                THE FRONT GALLERY in EDMONTON, March 28^th to April 12^th, 2012

2012                ATTI GALLERY in TORONTO, October 15^th to November 26^th, 2012

2011                AXIS CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY in CALGARY, July & August 2011

2011                DALES GALLERY in VICTORIA, April 2011

2010                DALES GALLERY in VICTORIA, April 8^th to May 4^th, 2010

2010                AXIS CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY in CALGARY,   October 7^th-26^th, 2010

Selected Group Exhibitions 

2018              Master of Fine Arts Graduation exhibition, Flutgraben, Berlin, August 2018

2018              History as Personal Memory, Slide Room Gallery, Victoria, February 16th to March 12

2017            Opening of new exhibition space, The Front Gallery, Edmonton, October

2017              Excavating, The Front Gallery Edmonton, August 24 to September 16

2017              To Return Again, The Slide Room Gallery, Victoria, March 10 to April 3rd

2016              Wilson Public Art Gallery, Cheltenham, England, High Street Layers Project,   
                     January 16^th to February 21^st, with Symposium event on February 12^th, 2016   

2015              Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria, December 2015   

2015              Graduate Art Prize 2015, 1 of 20 UK graduates, September-December 2015, London

2015              GALERIE LEO.COPPI, Auguststrasse Berlin, Germany, BERLINER BILDER, June to August

2015              VISA Alumni Juried Exhibition at Winchester Galleries Victoria, July 25-August 8

2015              B.A. (honors) in FINE ART Graduation Exhibition at Hardwick Campus,  
                     UNIVERSITY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE, Cheltenham, England, May 29th to June 23rd

2015              B.A. (honors) in FINE ART Graduation Exhibition at Free Range Gallery Space,  
                      London, England, June 24th to June 30th

2015                “ABSTRACT SHOW” - juried group show in Vancouver,  FEDERATION OF CANADIAN ARTISTS,
                      April 2015, 1^st PRIZE

2015                INTERSPACE - group exhibition in the project space of the University of Gloucestershire, March

2014                ART GALLERY OF GREATER VICTORIA,  July, Summer Small Works group show, Massey Gallery

2014               "ABSTRACT SHOW" - juried group show in Vancouver, FEDERATION OF CANADIAN ARTISTS    

                       April 2014, 2nd PLACE for Ira's HAMBURG HARBOUR painting             

2014                Sooke Fine Art Show, Juried Exhibition, July 2014
2014                ART GALLERY OF GREATER VICTORIA, Massey Gallery, July 2014, Summer Small Works group show

2014                Active Member show at the FEDERATION OF CANADIAN ARTISTS Gallery in Vancouver, January 2014

2013                The Red Show at GRANVILLE FINE ART GALLERY IN VANCOUVER, February 2013

2013                Active Member show at the Federation of Canadian Artists Gallery in Vancouver,January

2013                DIPLOMA OF FINE ARTS GRADUATION EXHIBITION, Slide Room Gallery, Victoria, BC, June

2012                PAINTING ON THE EDGE juried group exhibition in Vancouver in August ($1000 award)

2012                U8 exhibition, SOPA FINE ARTS GALLERY IN KELOWNA in April 2012

2012                GRANVILLE FINE ARTS GALLERY in Vancouver, Christmas Group Exhibition, December

2012                SIDNEY FINE ART SHOW, October 12^th to 14^th, 2012, Sidney, BC, (Honourable Mention)

2012                SOOKE FINE ART SHOW, July 28th to August 6th, 2012 – (JUROR’S AWARD)

2012                1580 GALLERY IN VICTORIA in April 2012

2012                Victoria International Airport with the ART GALLERY OF GREATER VICTORIA, July to December 2012

2011                U8 exhibition SOPA FINE ARTS GALLERY in Kelowna April 2011

2011                Sooke Fine Art Show, juried art exhibition, July/August 2011

2011                Sidney Fine Art Show, juried art exhibition, September 2011, (Honorable Mention)         

2011                Victoria International Airport, November and December 2011

2011                DALES GALLERY in Victoria in December 2011

2010                Sooke Fine Art Show 2010 - juried art exhibition, July 23rd to August 1st        

2010                U 8 Event at SOPA FINE ARTS GALLERY in Kelowna in April 2010

2010                Sidney Fine Art Show, juried art exhibition, September 2010

2010                AGNES BUGERA GALLERY in Edmonton, June 2010

2009                Sidney Fine Art Show. juried art exhibition in October 2009

---

[1] Foucault, Michel: Discipline and Punish, page 26

[2] Foucault, Michel: Discipline and Punish, Page 27-28

[3] Haug, Frigga: Erinnerungsarbeit, page 64

[4] Haug, Frigga, Female Sexualization, page 45

[5] Haug, Frigga: Erinnererungsarbeit, page 62

[6] Haug, Frigga: Erinnererungsarbeit, page 35

[7] Haug, Frigga, Female Sexualization, page 51

[8] Herman, Judith: Trauma and Recovery, Page 104

[9] Herman, Judith: Trauma and Recovery, page 114

[10] Buse, Gunhild: Macht, Moral und Weiblichkeit, page 74. Buse quotes Haug, whose views on moral are based on Marx’s question of moral. Haug is quoting from Marx/Engels Werke, Bd 1, Berlin, DDR, 1956

[11] Foucault, Michel: Der Wille zum Wissen, Sexualitaet und Wahrheit I, page 95.

[12] Herman, Judith: Trauma and Recovery, page 107

[13] Herman, Judith L.: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, page 109

[14] Foucault, Michel: Der Wille zum Wissen, Sexualitaet und Wahrheit I, page 96

[15] Foucault, Michel, Subjekt der Macht in Foucault, Michel, Analytik der Macht, page 251,

[16] also: ‘Die Kraehen schreien’ and ‘Vereinsamt’ from 1883. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche – Anti-Ethik und Uebermensch. Ein kleiner Blick in die Grundprinzipien des ethischen Denkens von Nietzsche

[17] From ‘Method’ in ‘History of Sexuality Volume I,’ pp. 92-102

[18] (Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1845). Philosophische Abhandlungen. p. 153).

[19] Haug, Frigga, Female Sexualization, Page 36

[20] Haug, Frigga, Female Sexualization, Page 52