A Woman's Perspective
A Woman’s Perspective – The Female Body as a Force Field
What happens when four female artists are brought together to create an exhibition focusing on women and the body?
Is it feminist art?
Yes! Because the noblest purpose of feminism is to break down patriarchy’s over-focus on men by granting women the same right to express and develop themselves. The four artists in this exhibition use this freedom to create what they are passionate about sharing with the world, and will, solely by virtue of their self-actualized voice, carry a feminist standpoint. The exhibition shows different perspectives on the female body, from the struggle for self-determination and body acceptance to the right to define one’s own identity. Here, personal experiences are woven into stories about autonomy, freedom and resistance, and examines how both bodies and nature are subjected to control, projections and exploitation. This perspective points towards an ecofeminist understanding of the body as part of nature’s living network and as a portal to something original – both ancient and new – in a time marked by artificiality and loss of connection to nature.
The artists insist on maintaining their own experiences as valuable testimonies that bring the feminine back to the center and challenge narratives where female experience is made secondary. The exhibition creates a space where courage, vulnerability, strength and solidarity are united in a living story about the female body as a force field for change.
Sketched Patchwork
Blood on linen
Hall of Femme x Plaza installation
La Wayaka Current
Quimaria
During my La Wayaka residency, I brought the feminine energy I often work with into a new medium. While I usually work with water-based oils, I’ve revisited an earlier chapter of my own life—my years in fashion design before turning to visual arts—and gone even further back, across generations of women in my family, where working with yarn and embroidery was a female domain. Because of this history, textile-based media have not traditionally held the same status in the art world—something I, as a feminist artist, wish to challenge.
This piece was created entirely by hand using only a regular needle and a crochet hook with llama wool from Chile. The image reflects my encounter with the raw landscape of the Atacama Desert—first its layered horizons, then the towering mountains and volcanoes. I was especially drawn to the different levels of the horizon and their soft, feminine lines, which I embraced in this work.
The legend of Quimal and the two princes struck me because it reminded me of a similar story from my hometown in Denmark, where a woman must choose between two men. With both humility toward these old legends and a touch of 2023 irony, I can’t help but reflect on why encounters between the masculine and the feminine still so often end in tragedy. More than anything, I wanted to incorporate Quimal and her prince as a reminder of inner balance and authenticity—especially in this time of global paradigm shift, where patriarchs across the world are slowly being unseated.
I’ve played with both the inner and outer processes of the masculine–feminine balance using different yarn textures and weights, with the intention of showing how beautiful even the most tangled, inward journey can be—when seen with perspective.
The Legend of Quimal (Chile)
Every afternoon, the young prince Licancabur would visit the great Salar. On the far side, beyond the uninhabited mountain range now known as Domeyko, he watched the sun set into the sea. Among the descendants of the ancient mountains was the beautiful Quimal.
After many shared sunsets, Quimal and Licancabur fell deeply in love. All was well until another prince, Lascar, encountered the captivating Quimal. The desired princess admitted her heart belonged to Licancabur. Furious at her confession, Lascar cried: If I can’t have you, no one will! Determined, he went after Licancabur.
The great mountains decided to intervene and punish them all. You, princess, for creating division between two brothers, shall be banished to the barren Domeyko range. You, Lascar, will forever fume with rage and confusion. And you, young Licancabur, will always see Quimal ahead of you—but never be able to reach her.
The Legend of Maria (Denmark)
An old tale tells of two brave knights, Hem and Sem, who fought a duel in spring for the love of the beautiful maiden Maria. Fate was cruel: both knights perished. In despair, Maria drowned herself in the fjord. Her vast estate was given to a monastery, and the place where she met her end was named Maria’s Field (Marias Ager). A spring still flows from the ground where her sorrowful tears for her suitors once fell.
Location
San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
Year
03/2023
Aquarius
In a world of chaos, inner fear, and fixed beliefs, my intention with this piece was to create an empowering light—something one could step into and touch something within themselves. I find that visual distractions have the ability to let my process unfold on its own, while I simply observe it with a sense of neutral love. During the making of the work, a friend pointed out how it began to resemble a jellyfish—coincidentally both the sign under which it was created and my own zodiac sign.
Aspects (from DEDI Symposium)
The still-untitled piece is evolving around aspects of personality. During the symposium with the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Initiative, we crossed paths in both Egypt and Denmark, exchanging everything from lockdown experiences during Covid to visions of individual artistic lives.
The work, which is still in progress, is shaped by both shared conversations with fellow artists and my own experience of isolation. I observed various aspects of my personality bloom—and at times spin out of control—while I tried to find hope wherever I could. What left the strongest impression on me during the DEDI symposium was the idea of nurturing lifelong projects. It feels like the opposite of everything my own inner aspects usually urge me to do—and yet there are endless stories left to unpack in layers of the piece.
So far, I have touched on hieroglyphs that captivated me, the Ragnarök prophecy, the urge to escape a noisy world and retreat inward, the growth I feel both within and around me, and the devotion (the eyes) toward vision.
Year
07/2022
Feminine Linjer
The exhibition was a collaboration between textile artist Michelle Bødker Pedersen’s knitted installations and visual artist Lot Winther’s figurative oil paintings. Here, textures and forms meet in a universe of warm, explorative energy and a clear tribute to feminine shapes.
