INTRODUCTION
Talking with
other women about erotic feelings is a chance to learn more
about them and thus about ourselves, to experience different
worlds and to be able to share them. Believe it or not this
subject is still very difficult to talk about, even amongst
girlfriends. It belongs to this sphere of privacy you usually
do not dare to enter without invitation.
Texts with
photographs are easier to understand and give more possibilities
of imagination. Of course, this levers the state of anonymitiy
people usually want to stay in concerning their most private
feelings and might frighten the women we asked for an interview.
So, initially we had the idea to mix the photographs and the
texts so that nobody would know which text belongs to which
woman.
Soon we realized
that this would not be a decent presentation. People want to
know which belongs to which - and have the right to know in
a way. Surprisingly women did not bother too much once they
had decided to talk. The most difficult step for them was the
decision to do it. We always talked about the sake of the project
for other women. This was one of the drives to work at it: to
help to be able to be more open with oneself and one another.
There was
a strong effect on us and the women concerned once we had started
to work together. The project made us change, especially Linda
and me of course, dealing with it all the time. Experiencing
so many different experiences we opened up to the different
worlds, lost our fear and original shyness. Thus women gave
us even more confidence and support.
We do not
want to hide the severe difficulties and even despair. The first
problem we only found out about one year after we started the
project is the word „erotic“ itself. Depending on
culture, nation and education it has such different meanings,
is not everywhere known at all. In Kenia, although being educated
in the English language, even women who graduated at Highschool
did not know it. In Northamerica it has a more sexual, pornographic
association, whereas in Germany it is connected with cultural
and intellectual qualities. So, we could not trust our title.
We had to fix a certain definition and present this as the given
one. „The word ‘erotic’ relates to feelings
of your body which arouse you, make you feel your sexual organs
and/or sensual feelings in your body“.
We then want
photograph and text being in harmony. This is not easy. Besides,
there should be consistency of the text in order to make the
reader and spectator feel comfortable. Meeting so many different
worlds and attitudes this was nearly impossible to reach, moreover
having to deal with translations. So, we dropped a lot of interviews.
There was
this conflict between documentary and artwork in general. We
were working between those two worlds, accepting that the reader
and spectator and listener should have the right to hear the
woman. Besides, we are artists and want to express our artistic
skills as well as our subjective personality. This is what makes
us keep going. We compromised the way you can see it here.
We are very
grateful to the women to have given us so much trust and faith
and confidence and their time and energy and hope that we can
reward them with the success of our project.
How
our project evolved
other texts
