SVEN GUTJAHR       BIO

XVII STUDIO — LINGERIE COLLECTION „BODIES THAT SHATTER“

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Feminine Melancholy as a con­tem­­po­rary Feminist practice: The work explores the contemporary phenomenon of ‘net feminism’ also referred to as Feminism 4.0 which conceives female melancholy as a metho­dological practice, the praxis that questions and thwarts society’s patriarchal structures.

The title ‘Bodies that shatter’ is rooted in the early work of Judith Butler which in her book ‘Bodies that matter’ described the performative power of the language, where subjects are described as male or female, and thus become socially perceptible as such through the performativity of the gender. The core of the following collection appeals to the power of female self-portrayal in the sense of empowerment as opposed to the tradition of a male-dominated perspective. With reference to the blogger scene and the social mediascape at large, the power to dash, shock or shatter is considered here, as well as it's ironically offensive parody of the conservative depiction of female body. The fragmented body is sensual and unvarnished, adventurous and enigmatic, the body that averts or invites, the body that plays with expectation, rejects or satisfies those. Such a body that exposes itself to the gazes and ruptures them for its own amusement thereafter. Fragmented, shattered, melancholic female body substantiates the gesture of appropriation and empowerment that reacts with irony, parody and displacements of expectations thus deploying them for oneself. It is a body which shatters patriarchal order with their own weapons. Since this practice targets the body straightforwardly, it is obvious that this body and manner of self-staging holds the power of agency, that goes beyond what it was initially intended for and deploys its opportunities. This particular stand of corporal resistance reproduces conventions and simultaneously subverts them.

The remarkable accumulation of scantily-clad selfies by net-feminists and of the particular role of underwear in relation to the female body initiated the theoretical basis of this lingerie collection, which reacts and interacts with elements of the contemporary melancholic feminist self-staging. The perspective of the designer ruptures the aesthetics thereby shattering the expectation of compliant femininity. The female self staged body does not serve as a smooth, flawless surface that manifest the beauty of the collection, but rather the lingerie itself serves as a frame to emphasize the self-assured, confident body and brings it to the foreground.