Celia Stroom, Salomé Jashi and Benedetta Barzini
Heroines is an international and interdisciplinary collective of female artists created in 2019 by the curator Celia Stroom. Every year, they organise a nomadic exhibition about “female intimacy” in countries where this topic is taboo. The challenge is to select artists who never met before and create in only 3 weeks uncompromised artworks about intimacy. This year, the project took place in Georgia. Ten artists from Europe and ten artists from Georgia were selected. Together, they questioned how women can live in a patriarchal society where traditions are locking them in specific ways of living. The project has been supported by i-Portunus, Institut Français, Ministery of Culture of Georgia, the NGO Womens fund of Georgia, and the program STEP. Heroines project is much more than an art residency and an exhibition. Inside a labyrinth of 200 sqm, they discover barefoot collective female artworks where videos, installations, vocal performances, ecstatic dances, paintings, poetry, textile design are intertwined.
More images here.
This art experience constitutes an immersive ritual, a deep healing process for the artists, and the audience as well. Together, they dive into unknown territories and shake their certitudes to open more their “enclosed garden”, what poets, artists, thinkers from Middle Age would call “Hortus conclusus”, the close chamber of the psychology. I personally discovered as a project manager that it’s not easy to invite artists to open up about intimacy. No matter the country where you would come from, it’s in the end challenging for every woman.” – Celia Stroom
