PERFORMING PARENTHOOD 2017 OFFICIAL SELECTION:
Elizabeth Wurst (Germany/Peru)
Super Pregnant Gangsta Bitch (2015) and Push & Pull (2016)
Video Performance
ARTIST STATEMENT:
“Super Pregnant Gangsta Bitch shows me performing in my ninth month of pregnancy to a medley of pop songs in a public space. The idea behind this performance is to reclaim the beauty and sexuality of a pregnant woman, opposing the traditional notion that women should hide their bellies and be ashamed of pregnancy. I wanted to confront the gazing passersby and make them feel awkward and confused due to the unusual pregnant body dancing bluntly on the street. The video fits to my wider artistic practice since it points to the oversexualized representation of women in popular culture, in this case in music videos and subverts these images by showing a bawdy gestating woman.
Push & Pull stems from the limitations that I encountered while taking daily care of my baby and trying to keep my artistic practice alive. It questions the power relations between a parent and an infant by using the figure of the lion tamer. Who is the dominant figure? Who directs whom? Who relinquishes? Who wins? On the one hand I found myself as a parent constantly trying to tame the natural impulses of my baby, giving it commands, putting it behind bars to keep it safe, soothing its wild tempers. On the other hand I also felt captive myself, surrendering to its orders, yielding to its needs on the spot. Using a GoPro camera to document these encounters was the only way to film during my daily routine, while staying flexible to the switch of locations and unexpected situations.”
Elizabeth Wurst studied at the University of Fine Arts Braunschweig (Germany) and in 2012 she received her MA in performance, intervention and video installation. She lives and works in Peru and Germany and her work has been shown all over Europe, in South America and in the USA.