Lara Solbach, Borderline Experience, 2023
How much space am I taking up? What is my intention? Does my position in society determine the amount of space I have, the space I have to unfold? For example, in so-called “manspreading” the space is occupied unequally, whether consciously or unconsciously. This reflects a power hierarchy in our society. Public space belongs to men. Women and trans people take up much less space. In the socio-critical artistic work, the connection between the still rigid traditional gender roles and non-verbal communication through posture and appearance in public space is examined on the topics of body, expression and attitude.
In doing so, it follows the approach of the work of the feminist photographer Marianne Wex. In her book "'Female' and 'male' body language as a result of patriarchal power relations" from 1979, she compared almost 5,000 photos of the body lan-guage of men and women and thus showed the unequal gender relations. The large-format, multimedia approach on canvas opens up a new space that invi-tes you to question the clearly defined and often inflexible gender roles. In the ex-pressive work, the broadly seated person remains intentionally ambiguous in every way. The intense gaze wants to challenge the viewer. With the help of various com-binations of “gender expression”, body posture and language, the classic gender stereotypical and hierarchical thinking is symbolically made visible and discussion among the recipients is encouraged. By playing with and questioning the gender stereotypes "male" and "female", the recipient can become aware of the different interpretations and evaluations.
Lara Solbach, born in 2000, studies art education and art, music and theater at LMU Munich. The work is characterized by a great interest in social justice and the desire to make marginalized groups visible. Through art, Lara examines topics such as gender roles, control and power and wants to give more space to various realities of life. The work ranges from illustrative and figurative moments to more abstract motifs. What connects them, is the desire to present the world and its people in all their multifacetedness and diversity.