Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld

by 
Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld

Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld about reproductive rights, communication with her ancestors and Nancy Holt.

What are you working on at the moment?
For three years I’ve been working on Labor Lab, a photochemical work, which emerged through drizzling hormones and hormone-based drugs like the pill, the abortion pill or oestrogen on photographical film, to enlarge it later in the dark room. In preparation for the exhibition, I had the honour to think together with great minds like Esther Leslie, Margarida Mendes, Julieta Aranda, Jeannie Moser, Ashkan Sepahvand and Dehlia Hannah in a workshop about Labor Lab. I hope that the exhibition might spark increased exchange and reflection around labour, reproductive justice, our neoliberal meritocracy and capitalist exploitation that reaches into the smallest molecules of our bodies. 

Labor Lab will be on view at the Schering Stiftung for Berlin Art Week this year.   

Do you have a daily ritual?
Communicate with my ancestors.

What do you listen to while working?
Laurie Anderson, Nina Simone, Matthew Herbert, Patti Smith, Limahl, Julian Muller, Four Tet, Connan Mockasin, Tracy Chapman, Tantras of Gyütö, Sets from Aurora Halal, Venetta and Lily Ackermann, Barbara, Pink Floyd, Beastie Boys, Bach, Shostakovich, David Bowie, Ton Steine Scherben, Vivaldi, Corelli, Pergolesi, Brahms, Beethoven, Aphex Twin, Belle and Sebastian, Dolly Parton, Mort Garson, Nick Drake, Peaches, Warpaint, Debussy.

Which book do you like to gift?
I have three favourites: Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch, The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow and Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism.

Which art work would you like to have at home?
Nancy Holt’s Sun Circles in my dream and in limiting reality her Mirrors of Light.

Your favourite exhibition venue in Berlin?  
Gropius Bau. 

What accessory or object could you not be without?
Sadly, my computer. I wish it would be something like a magic wand or a musical instrument. 

What keeps you going?
I have to process what I experience in my life. At first glance the motivation looks like curiosity and joy of understanding things. If I look closer, it might be that the reason is also fear: learning and understanding things to be less scared in the world. Most likely the motor is both joy and fear at the same time. 

Who would you like to meet?  
Silvia Federici and Florentina Holzinger. 

What do you look forward to after you’ve finished work?
Hanging out with my son. 

 

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