Nilofar Rezai - Below the surface

For the work, Rezai interviewed women who had had abortions or were toying with the idea of ​​terminating a pregnancy. Rezai was particularly interested in the emotional discrepancy associated with having an abortion. The study focuses on the cultural, moral and political implications of abortion, how certain feelings are socially encouraged or even forced in order to materialise community and bind individuals firmly to social norms.

In addition to the film work, which in its aesthetics picks up on the artist's performative work and skilfully develops it further, the exhibition also contains sculptural works that establish a physical relationship with the viewer and also appear as objects in the film. The jump between fiction and reality, between what is sketched on the screen and what is physically tangible on site, vividly symbolises that dealing with supposedly marginal issues actively affects everyone.

A textile hanging in front of the entrance to the film work makes this particularly clear. The visitors inside are invited to complete a text that is clearly reminiscent of a prayer in its form and imagery, to complete the pre-embroidered words pinprick by pinprick and thereby perhaps to implement other perspectives or questions in the discourse on self-determination.

With her exhibition Below the Surface, Rezai specifically questions the social debate about abortion, how it is often conducted emotionally and how the right to make decisions about the body and its autonomy is linked to a network of legal constraints and dependencies. The question arises as to how and why personal decisions are not detached from political power relations and social interpretation sovereignty.