(2020) During my participation in Objet Trouvé+, an online residency based on the surrealist object, I start looking further at the work of women surrealists. I dived into the life and work of Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven (12 July 1874 – 14 December 1927). Also known as the Baroness of Dada and inventor of the readymade, she created the fountain attributed to M. Duchamp (who stole it from her) but unlike him did not rise to fame and recognition. She was known to wear extravagant clothes and accessories, such as a bird cage as a hat or a stamp as a face ornament.
Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven seems to float somewhere between madness and free spirit and I feel like harnessing some of this, and paying femage to her. I create a headgear and earrings out of all the elements I have worked with during the residency and that represent my skin: the cheese grater, the yarn, the seven objects. I make my skin as a wearable, a costume, something that can be worn proudly only without a sense of shame. Maybe this is what I admire the most about Elsa, she seems to feel no sense of shame.
Finding out about her, I realise I do not know enough women artists. Understandably so since they tend to be erased from the art history. To remedy this, I purchase the book Forgotten Women: The Artists, by Zing Tsjeng, which opens my mind to many incredible women, with Elsa leading the way.
(2024) I make a zine called If I could spend one day with Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven
THE SKIN PROJECT 