the enlightened

The Enlightened, 2024, iron, video-playing monitors, lace, tulle, bra straps, metal adjusters, hook & eye closures, each structure: 58x37x10 cm, installation view: DOGO TOTALE: BODY, Alte Turnhalle, Lichtensteig, CH. Photo: Hanes Sturzenegger

The Enlightened pays tribute to Woman and Nature (1978) by Susan Griffin. The book traces the millennia-old patriarchal construction that equates woman with nature, thereby positioning her lower on the civilization hierarchy than man, who is associated with culture.  Griffin’s book interweaves quotes by figures of the religious, philosophical, and scientific male canon — Aristotle, Luther, Rousseau, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Freud, and others — whose ideas have perpetuated misogyny under the guise of objectivity.

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Developed during the DOGO residency in Lichtensteig, a Swiss town nestled in a mountainous landscape, the project draws parallels between Griffin’s critique and the region’s environment. The sentences Griffin cites — portraying nature (i.e. woman) as something to cultivate and groom, but also subjugate and control — are mirrored in the area’s hiking trails. Here, as in many similar environments, mechanical interventions like iron rods piercing rock formations or timber beams fastened with iron plates “tame” nature, much like a bra supports yet restrains women’s bodies.

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The installation comprises three ceiling-hung iron structures. Each is clad with decorative lace — embroidered with butterflies, leaves, and flowers — akin to the typical nature-motif lace prettifying the structures of bras. Behind the lace veils, monitors display blank white screens onto which sentences from Griffin’s book are typed in bold black text: “By knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all other bodies, men can be the masters and possessors of nature”; “For as nature has endowed lion with claw and fang [...] she has endowed women with deceit.”*

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The sentences are typed onto the screens at a rapid pace, visualizing the regurgitation of patriarchy’s teachings. Their progression is occasionally interrupted by the artist’s own remarks and questions, injecting moments of introspection and defiance. This conflicted dialogue—between dominant narratives that shape us and internal voices that wish to rebel against them—unfolds in real time, metaphorically unburdening the bra-constrained chest.

The Enlightened, 2024, iron, video-playing monitors, lace, tulle, bra straps, metal adjusters, hook & eye closures, structures: 58x37x10 cm, installation view: DOGO TOTALE: BODY, Alte Turnhalle, Lichtensteig, CH. Photography: Hanes Sturzenegger