SARAH BOHN

This body of work addresses themes of violence, vulnerability and agency. It explores how these forces transform us and questions what we do and do not have control over. It utilizes classical gender tropes such as the reclining figure and the bronze bust as means to subvert and contextualize objectification of the female body and violence against women.

 

My practice involves breaking things and sometimes putting them back together. The process of breaking is a kind of performative violence. It is irrevocable and random, which forces me to respond to transformations that are out of my control. When I break porcelain, I am not only thinking about pain and danger, I am also thinking about breaking historical notions of female beauty and value. 

 

I use photography and life-casting because they act as a record of an actual person as opposed to an icon or symbol. There is a directness that feels intimate and real to me. Like a death mask, indexical signification calls to mind mortality and brings the subject and viewer into reflection. The process of trapping my body in plaster, temporarily unable to move or speak, often induces a strange meditative reflection on internalized objectification and self-harm.

 

Parts of the body have special significance in this work, particularly the neck. The neck serves as a symbol of simultaneous vulnerability and strength. Within the neck exists anatomy which is so vital to life: the spine, trachea, arteries, etc. Yet these parts are so unprotected and exposed. The neck also contains the vocal cords which are the source of the voice. There is a powerful agency inherent to the ability to speak up for oneself, to speak to ones-own reality. So often, people are silenced through censorship, conditioning, and violence.

 

Much of this work is explored through self-portraiture as a way of pointing to the universal through the conduit of the self; it considers how subjective experiences with violence and objectification relate to the same concerns on a societal level. Female self-portraiture is an inherently rebellious act because, within the countless images of female bodies that exist, the vast majority are made by men. There are so few depictions of women analyzing and representing themselves. My work is a direct retaliation to this categorization. Through self-portraiture, I claim authority over myself.