Undoing the Body
UNDOING THE BODY Undoing the Body marks a return to printmaking in my practice to investigate how we see and interpret familiar images on an intimate scale. Using classical statues—icons that have profoundly shaped European ideals of beauty—as “screens,” I overlay close-up photographs of aged skin. This [...]
Art In Public Space
ART IN PUBLIC SPACE: NOTHING STAYS THE SAME When we think about art in public space, England has seen some turbulent times the last couple of years. Recently, we have gone through protests, debates, and some removals of statues that had been quietly hiding in public view for years. The topics that [...]
Misdirection – Desire of Wonder
MISDIRECTION: DESIRE OF WONDER This video records a conversation which took place in Leiden in 2018. A magician, a rabbi, an art historian and a curator sat around a table to discuss their take on 'wonder'. And what do a magician, a rabbi and a curator have in common? One answer is, they [...]
The Magic of Projection
DE MAGIE VAN DE PROJECTIE HET SYMPOSIUM De opname documenteert een symposium gehouden op 19 Oktober 2018 in Leiden. Het doel van het symposium was het interpreteren van Rembrandts schilderij "Het feestmaal van Belsazar” wat her verhaal van Daniel verbeeld (het teken aan de muur). Het gesprek is onderdeel [...]
The Magic of Projection
THE MAGIC OF PROJECTION: FILMINSTALLATION Museum De Lakenhal has a unique collection of magic lanterns and magic lantern slides. In the ‘Magic Room’ the visitor can see highlights of that collection as well as a film installation. The installation presents scenes [...]
Paradise Lost
PARADISE LOST Paradise Lost is part of the HOME Project. In this two channel video installation Pakistani author Intizar Husain talks to artist Rashid Rana about leaving Meerut during the Partition of India and Pakistan. Rashid Rana had suggested a HOME dialogue between Intizar Husain and himself. They started out sitting at [...]
The Silent Empress
SILENT EMPRESS Silent Empress made a statue of Queen Victoria speak, highlighting the uncritical culture of commemorating European colonial history. A loudhailer affixed to the statue broadcast a monologue broadcast excerpts from historical and contemporary political figures contending that empire-building was grounded in exploitation and violence, yet denying the need [...]
Reporting to the Landscape
REPORTING TO THE LANDSCAPE Reporting to the Landscape was an intervention in public space. Several sound tags were attached to the sculpture group the Family of Man (1970) by Barbara Hepworth. These tags played interviews with refugees from Africa and the Middle East. These new residents of Yorkshire described the landscapes [...]
HOME project
HOME How can I reclaim a memory, where objects are lost and access to places is denied? Remembering is not a purely cognitive process, because our body can trigger memories when we make a gesture, move across a space or touch an object. The HOME-project is a collection of [...]
Presence of an Absence
PRESENCE OF AN ABSENCE Sophie Ernst collaborated with Taha Mehmood on an investigation into the relationship between objects, experiences and identity. For their installation Ernst and Mehmood travelled to Indonesia. The colonial encounter between Europe and Asia left thousands of stories in its wake. [...]
Presence of an Absence
PRESENCE OF AN ABSENCE In conversation with different guests Ernst and Mehmood investigated the ways in which historical and contemporary social realities are shaped in Europe and Asia. The following topics were discussed: the role played by stories in the making of memory, identity and culture, colonial stories in [...]
No place like America
NO PLACE LIKE AMERICA The title of the work quotes Peter Bichsel‘s children‘s story Amerika gibt es nicht. The work consists of documentary video portraits of young men. These clips are projected onto an uneven ‚screen‘ of stacked cardboard boxes. The portraits were made [...]
Dying Gauls
DYING GAULS Dying Gauls re-imagines classical sculptures that have long stood as emblems of heroic suffering and defeated “others.” Traditionally, these figures functioned to underscore ancient power and conquest; yet I find them equally charged with potent questions about identity, migration, and the enduring mythologies that shape how [...]
Jannat
Jannat Jannat – literally paradise – is a promise and a fantasy. In the video installation, Jannat becomes a dark invitation. The work refers to the paintings on the backs of the Rikshaws in Lahore, Pakistan. Oversized letters serve as projection screen. In the Indian press, Jannat was described as „Welcome [...]
Face Off
FACE OFF The projection work addresses ‘the gaze’ and self-image. The work uses a translucent mirror as projection screen. As spectator, we can see our reflection in a mirror at the same spot a projected image of a woman (the artist) becomes visible. This play of two reflections is [...]
True Love
TRUE LOVE These large scale backlit photos deal with the male gaze and the image of women in public space in Pakistan. The light boxes shaped as large letters like advertisements. They are pictures of cinema adds for Lollywood films. The larger-than-life billboards in the cinema-district of Lahore often [...]
Lovedolls – Exhibition
LOVEDOLLS The exhibition Lovedolls was Sophie Ernst's first major solo exhibition in Germany. The show opened at the Museums für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke in Munich. The exhibition showed projections on plaster casts of classical sculptures. An adapted form of the exhibition traveled to the Abguss-Sammlung Antiker Plastik, Berlin. "Sophie Ernst makes plaster [...]
El Pelele
EL PELELE Karachi, Pakistan, 2003. The video work deals with the relationship between women and men in a patriarchal society. The video is quoting the painting 'El Pelele' by Francisco de Goya, which was created 1791/1792 and shows a game in which a male doll is thrown [...]
Lovedolls – prints
LOVEDOLLS Prints These large scale backlit photo collages are stills from the video Lovedolls (2003). They show a plastic sex-doll floating in a 3-D computer generated lanscape.
Victory
VICTORY Cockfights have a long tradition and can be found in South America, Asia and, as a form of traditional folklore, in parts of France. The brutality, cruelty and perverted lust to watch a killing seems obvious. To anyone approaching the Nike of Samothrake the purity and striking beauty of [...]
Apollo
APOLLO Apollo (part of the Lovedolls series) uses the classical statue of Apollo Pourtalès as a projection surface, revealing the invisible inscriptions of white, patriarchal power structures embedded within ancient art. Through a video of a slow-moving, androgynous figure precisely mapped onto the statue, the work subtly explores tensions [...]
Black Venus
BLACK VENUS The Black Venus (Rotterdam, 2004) is an augmentation of the Venus Medici. This work confronts patriarchal power structures embedded in ancient art while grappling with European colonial legacies and migration. A pristine cast of the classical statue—long celebrated as an ideal of white beauty—comes alive through a video [...]
The Border
THE BORDER Every day at the Waga–Attari border, Indian and Pakistani security forces lower their flags at sunset in a highly choreographed display of masculine aggression. This photograph shows the artist seemingly joining the Pakistan Rangers in the ceremony. To participate in this rigidly nationalist ritual, highlighting the tension between [...]
Like That?
LIKE THAT? This work addresses the male gaze and women’s presence in public space within Pakistan’s patriarchal society. Approached on the street, some women posed confidently for the camera while others were more cautious—yet they all reveled in emulating Lollywood star Saima. Their brief gestures were projected onto a [...]