Ané Krieg, Proto Agender, Acetate & thread, 21 × 11,5cm, 2023
Language has gender associated to it or words that make gendered assumptions. This is called Gendered Language. Political sciences have shown that gendered language leads to more regressive gender attitudes and has contributed to creating the gender norms that we are familiar with today. This brings the question of did language come into existence as gendered?
Proto world theory argues that all languages developed from one single language which is the hypothetical parent language of all others. There is no physical documentation of the origin of language therefor no evidence to suggest that language came into existence as gendered. In Proto Gender I have (re)created this first Language as agender. I have removed grammatical gender from language by discarding grammar and vocabulary and all other types of writing systems from other languages and designed my own by using logograms and pictograms.
Language developed from sounds being imitated, making the first language onomatopoeic. This Proto Language that I have (re)created I designed by using sounds and giving it a physical (visual) form. The purpose of recreating my own agender is to remove all gender classifications attached to it and by doing so removing the gender norms that gendered language has shaped as well as the limitations that it has created.
Because there is no physical evidence of the original Proto Language, I have transcribed my own designs of it into a book that exist only out of transparent paper. The language is not written but rather cut out and by using light the book can be read through the shadows that the cut outs throw. By using a non-physical material such as light I am retaining the idea of the Proto Language not having a physical form.
Ané Krieg, Proto Agender, Acetate & thread, 21 × 11,5cm, 2023
