Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld - Labor Lab

In her solo exhibition, the artist Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld presents a new experimental photo series. By dropping solvents of hormones, endogenous substances such as breast milk, and pharmacological substances such as the contraceptive pill on pre-exposed negatives, she creates forms that cast an aesthetic spell. The selection of substances and drugs illuminates Schönfeld’s engagement with the complex issues surrounding the control mechanisms of female reproduction. By translating processes that happen inside the body into a visual form, the artist provides us with an aesthetic access to this debate.

Prior to the exhibition, the artworks will be the subject of intellectual-artistic discussions featuring, among others, Dr. Jeannie Moser (literary and cultural studies scholar), Prof. Dr. Christina Vagt (media scholar), Ashkan Sepahvand (artist), Prof. Dr. Esther Leslie (political aesthetics, and Dr. Dehlia Hannah (philosopher of science).

Sarah Schönfeld designs artworks that serve as experimental laboratories. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, she works with photographs, which can also take the form of installations and sculptures, to inspire discussion and insights on complex issues.

In “Labor Lab,” the artist again draws on her tried-and-tested method of cameraless images. Already in an earlier series of works titled “All you can feel” (2013), she made the photochemical substances of pre-exposed negatives react with substances such as illegal drugs. The combination of synthetic chemistry products and artistic media such as color film has been the subject of a systematic study by author and scientist Esther Leslie. In her book Synthetic Worlds (2005), she traces the historical connections betwen innovations in the chemical industry and the technological-material achievements in the fields of photography and plastic production which took place contemporaneously.