Carlotta Borcherding, born 1999 in Hamburg, Germany, is a
media artist who lives and works in Linz, Austria. They study at the department of Timebased
and Interactive Media Art at the University of Art in Linz.
Their projects have established a
focus within the performative art developing choreographic elements, designing and
composing sound and creating acoustic and visual landscapes. Thus placing the body itself
as a medium within a digital and interactive context. Read more
Email
Instagram
Exhibitions
projects
NORDWIND (2024)
photoseries, 10 x A5, 1x A0
project by Carlotta Borcherding
The series NORDWIND shows the forests of the Thurytal valley in the Mühlviertel in Upper Austria. It is a valley where giants are turned into rocks and where it still smells of sulphur at night because of the devil's work. In the photos, the forest seems to be a place of refuge. A place that offers protection. But who or what is the person in the pictures fleeing from?
The persecution of witches peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries and was an oppression of women and other marginalised people. Women and people who did not fit into the socially constructed gender norm were pushed out of the public sphere. This use of patriarchal violence, the spread of fear and terror meant social and economic disempowerment for women and other marginalised people. Above all, female sexuality and a woman's special relationship to the reproductive process was understood as a social threat that endangered the maintenance of the male capitalist order, which grew with the changes of the times and the end of feudalism. Female sexuality, sexual pleasure, a woman's significant relationship to the reproductive process, nature, herbs and medicine, as well as general knowledge in homeopathy and medicine meant social and economic power of a female person. Accordingly, the proletariat, the working class and, above all, independent, single or older women, widows, sex workers, people who did not fit into the constructed male and female gender norms, as well as midwives, healers, natural and herbal practitioners were particularly affected by the persecution of witches.
Even today, the public space for women*, queer and FLINTA* persons is often an unsafe and discriminatory space, a space with boundaries. The person in the pictures finds shelter between the trees and partially disappears with the picture. While the forest is romanticised here as a place that offers refuge and safety, the urban public space seems to remain alien and unsafe.
Photos und Konzept: Carlotta Borcherding
Editing: Carlotta Borcherding, Max Niederer