Project grants 2008
"7 Tage mit Vanda Vieira-Schmidt"
(7
Days with Vanda Vieira-Schmidt)
Applicant: Nathalie
David, Hamburg
Type
of project: biographical film
Funding: € 5,000
For
a decade, Vanda Vieira-Schmidt (born 1949), an artist who left
psychiatric hospital in 1995 and now lives in sheltered accommodation,
has been drawing obsessively against war. At
one point, she had more than 250,000 sheets of drawings piling
up in her basement, which are now housed in the famous Prinzhorn
Collection.
With
her “World Rescue Project” Vanda Vieira-Schmidt turns
against evil, fighting it in drawings and in special formulae comprised
of numerical sequences.
The
film will make use of current facts, such as numbers of casualties
and prisoners of war and other relevant data, in order to document
Vieira-Schmidt’s work and to split the material into a sequence
of days. These facts will be used “in the form of a news
ticker, displayed in between the daily sections.” “Numbers
as such will be an important means in structuring the film,” says
Nathalie David. This will go right down
to the level of music, specifically composed for the film, which
will be based on mathematical considerations.
Artist
and filmmaker Nathalie David was born in 1963. She
studied in Nice, Hamburg and Paris and earned a fellowship to Babelsberg
in 2003/2004. She has already made several
films about women artists, such as
- "Diese Photographin heißt Leonore Mau, 54" (The name of this photographer is Leonore Mau, 54) (2005 Deichtorhallen, Hamburg).
- "Paula Modersohn Becker, ein Atemzug … von der Antike zur Moderne" (Paula Modersohn Becker, taking a breath, … from classical antiquity to modernism) (premiered 16th October 2007, Bremen). This film was commissioned by the Paula-Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bremen to commemorate the centenary of the death of the painter.
"Caroline & Wilhelm
von Humboldt. Eine Liebe im Konjunktiv." (Caroline & Wilhelm
von Humboldt. A love affair in the subjunctive.),
Berlin
Applicant: Dr
Hazel Rosenstrauch, Berlin
Type
of project: publication
Funding: € 5,000
This
will be a double biography which examines the history of the relationship
between Wilhelm and Caroline von Humboldt and oscillates across
genres between literature, social history and linguistics.
Keywords: dissolution
of order, experiments in gender issues, discovery of individuality.
Between
1997 and 2006, Hazel Rosenstrauch was editor in chief of the journal “GEGENWORTE – Hefte
für den Disput über Wissen” published by the Berlin-Brandenburgische
Akademie der Wissenschaften. She
works as a researcher, teacher, editor and author for publishing
houses and scientific institutions.
"Die
weibliche Schrift" (Female characters)
Applicant: Yvonne Rüchel-Aebersold, Munich
Type of project: documentary
Funding: € 5,000
Because they were barred from any kind of education and not allowed
to learn to read or write, during the 19th century women in the
southern Chinese province of Hunan developed a set of secret characters
called “Nu Shu”. This film will present the search
for the last women who still master this form of feminine subculture.
The director is also interested in finding out which forms of “silent
resistance” women in present-day China have developed.
Yvonne Rüchel-Aebersold was born in 1976 in Munich. She is
a trained photographer and studied at the Munich film school. She
works as a freelance author for print media and TV.
"Anattitude
Magazine"
Applicant: Jeanette
Petri, Frankfurt
Type
of project: 3rd issue
of the magazine “Anattitude” dedicated to the history
of female Hip Hop culture.
Funding: € 4,000
“Anattitude” is
the only magazine on female Hip Hop culture. Its
first issue was published in 2005, featuring in-depth interviews
with female Hip Hoppers from the Netherlands, the USA, Switzerland
and Germany. Its formal appearance also
places the artistically designed magazine way outside the norm.
The
third issue is planned to form the basis of a Hip Hop exhibition
room set up by Jeanette Petri and Catfight Magazine for the “B*Girlz
Event – Summit 2008”, the first major European women’s
Hip Hop festival in Germany.
Jeanette
Petri studied art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach,
focussing on photography, video and magazine design. In 2005 she
earned her diploma under tutor Heiner Blum. Since
2005 she has been designing “Anattitude” on her own,
full time. Jeanette Petri lives in Frankfurt
and currently holds a scholarship by Cité Internationale
des Arts in Paris.
"Pommes
d'Amour – 7 Geschichten über die Liebe." (Pommes
d'Amour – 7 stories about love)
Applicant: Barbara
Yelin, Berlin
Type
of project: comic strip anthology
Funding: € 3,300
Female
comic book authors are few and far between – but their number
is growing. The anthology “Pommes
d’Amour – 7 Geschichten über die Liebe” will
collect work by seven European authors from Belgium, France and
Germany. Each of them will compose and
draw an exclusive 20-page contribution on the topic of “love”. Publication
is scheduled for April 2008 and will coincide with an exhibition
at the Comic-Salon Erlangen in May 2008.
Barbara
Yelin was born in 1977 and studied illustration in Hamburg. After
earning her diploma in 2004 she moved
to Berlin, where she works as a comic book artist and illustrator. She
has already published two books with French publisher “Editions
de l'an 2”, currently working on her third.
"Frauen
helfen Frauen" (Women helping women)
Applicant: Hilke
Droege-Kempf, Autonomes Frauenhaus Frankfurt
Type
of project: exhibition / documentation
Funding: € 3,000
To
commemorate the 30th anniversary
of the project “Frauen helfen Frauen/Autonomes Frauenhaus
Frankfurt” (“Women helping women”/Autonomous
Women’s Shelter Frankfurt), the research agency “Zeitsprung.
Kontor für Geschichte” will design and build an exhibition
about the history of this association. The
exhibition will premiere alongside “1968” in May 2008
at the Historische Museum.
"Freiheit
ist immer ein Wagnis. Die
Lebensgeschichte der ersten deutschen Politikprofessorin Eleonore
Sterling" (Freedom is always an adventure. The life story
of the first female German professor of political science, Eleonore
Sterling)
Applicant: Dr.
Birgit Seemann, Rodgau
Type
of project: scientific-biographical publication
Funding: € 2,700
Eleonore
Sterling (1925–1968) was the first woman in Germany to be
offered a chair in political science in 1968. This
biography will document the moving life story of the daughter of
a Jewish merchant who emigrated to New York in the 1930s and returned
to Frankfurt in 1953 to earn her PhD under Max Horkheimer.
Birgit
Seemann was born in 1961. She is a university lecturer in politics
and social sciences and works as an independent scholar and freelance
author.
"Die
Chordirigentin Margarete Dessoff, 1874–1944" (The choir
conductor Margarete Dessoff, 1874–1944)
Applicant: Sabine
Fröhlich, Frankfurt
Type
of project: publication
Funding: € 2,000
Margarete
Dessoff was born in 1874 in Berlin and grew up in Frankfurt am
Main. She is regarded as one of the first female conductors able
to assert themselves in modern music business. In
1918, she founded one of the first German Madrigal Associations
and since 1923 lead the choral work at the New York Academy of
Music. However, the German history of
modern choral music does not even mention her, though the New York “Dessoff
Choirs” bear her name.
Sabine
Fröhlich was born in 1951. She is a graduate of the Hochschule
für Fernsehen und Film in Munich, where she studied film. She
produces her own documentaries and works as a freelance author
for radio, printed press and TV.
"Library
on Wheels"
Applicants: Shannon
Bool, Judith Raum and Adrian Williams, Berlin and Frankfurt
Type
of project: A journey through Kosovo
with a library on wheels
Funding: € 2,000
The “Contemporary
Arts Library”, which came to existence in 2006, comprises
of a book collection and a room to be used for projects in Prishtina,
Kosovo. The library’s stock was
donated by international artists and institutions, including Portikus,
Frankfurter Kunstverein and Bundeskulturstiftung. The
initiators of the “Contemporary Arts Library” are three
artists who plan to take a selection of the collection on the road,
trying to get in touch with the locals through movies and other
forms of presentation. The project will
document this adventure as well as and reflect on the roles of
the three women as artists and citizens of western countries. The
final arts video will be presented in Frankfurt, Berlin, Prishtina
and other places.
Shannon
Bool was born in 1972 in Canada. She is a Städel graduate and
lives as a independent artist in Berlin.
Judith
Raum was born in 1977. She studied at the Städel, at Frankfurt
University and in New York. She lives
in Frankfurt and Berlin, where she works as an artist and arts
critic.
Adrian
Williams was born in 1979 in Oregon, USA. She is also a Städel
graduate and since 2002 she has committed much of her energy to
fostering artistic and cultural exchanges between Eastern and Western
Europe. She lives in Frankfurt, where
her last solo exhibition was presented by Voges&Partner.
