I’d like to have a direct look at my ‘shadow sister’, to have a look at this anger, give in and see where it takes me. I want to encourage myself and other women to reclaim the space that we were denied, reclaim our bodies, reclaim our voices, reclaim our stories. To make a pledge to have a little step towards a change - whichever change it might be - speak up, stand up to something, say NO, say YES…

And I want to encourage men to listen and to not be threatened.
I’d like to reveal a different woman. 
She is fierce, unapologetic, assertive and wild. 
She doesn’t have to please the eye, be sweet, be nice, appealing or agreeable. 
She’s outraged. 
She has a lot to be angry about.

In the Western civilisations women seek for images that would define their identity. In the Christian narrative the representation of divine feminine is missing. Virgin Mary, closest to it, only represents the flawless and pure aspects of femininity, not representing the woman’s nature as a whole. The expected images of femininity in our culture have been determined in large part by desires and needs of men, as women’s stories in myths and legends were also told by men. Men raised with traditional values tend to want women to be soft, caring, sweet and nice. Yet women are not necessarily what men imagine or want them to be.

Initially the idea of this show was to explore the resilience and confrontation, fight for survival ingrained in the beauty of life, connection and tension between the opposites, complexities of identity and belonging.

But then the country that I used to call home has started a horrendous and ugly war, and I had to find means to process it all, as it shuttered the order of things and sense of belonging for me. I have experienced the most intense rage I didn’t know I have in me.

And it lead me to approaching current events with mythological thinking and exploring the dark side of feminine power. The most outspoken protests were carried out by women, and women were the ones who suffered in this (or any) war the most, although they’re never the heroes and they’re absent from the historical accounts of war.