Anna-Stina Treumund
Tallinna Linnagalerii
12 September – 06 October 2013
“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards…*”
We all have been brought up with the same stories – hetero-stories – where singularly and self-evidently there are only two sexes, both with clearly defined roles. The main character of our compulsory school literature “Jane Eyre”, is a tortured, grey orphan, who lets things happen and who believes in good biblical education. Mr. Rochester’s crazy wife is the Exotic Other, locked up in the attic and sowing chaos. And Mr. Rochester himself is an afflicted despot who is able to express his feelings only when helpless and physically crippled.
But it could be that a different presentation of sexes and distribution of gender roles is a reality, not the realm of fantasy.
This exhibition features six photographs, which queer well-known stories from classic literature and one video of a queer fairy tale:
“To be sure that unicorns fillies were protected from big, evil Skinhead, the good Genderbender filled his stomach with fillies’ mother’s old horseshoes and drowned him into the deepest lake of the forest. The same evening Genderbender appointed his friends Drag, Transu and Karlsson as peacekeepers in the unicorns’ beautiful forest so that no skinhead, no homophobe, nor any other beastly creature could come to ruin little unicorns’ lives.”
Anna-Stina Treumund is a PhD student at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her area of research is the deconstruction of heteronormative culture. Her works to date have been related to the expression and creation of the queerfeminist community.