With my performance Solveig I would like to focus on the subject of oral sex. First and foremost I deal with my own inhibitions and feelings of shame; I am also interested in the subject of oral sex and female sexual awareness in the social context.

My personal wiev:

As a child of the soviet and post-soviet regime, I grew up in a society in which sex was a taboo and served only for reproduction purposes. Above all, women not only had to subordinate to male sexuality, but they were also socially forced to be ashamed of their own sexuality. Oral sex was perceived as unhygienic, pejorative and humiliating, and was not allowed to give a pleasure to a decent woman.Current social and educational beliefs have strongly influenced my personal development and sexual awareness as a woman and have created many obstacles and inhibitions. My artistic work serves me not only as an exploration of the subject, but also as an individual liberation.

Regarding to  Ibsen’s drama Peer Gynt, the image of  a woman – Solveig

Solveig makes a sacrifice of her own life and waits for Peer Gynt in a small shabby hut in the middle of the forest (meanwhile Peer Gynt is traveling around the world) all her life, because she did´t have the ability to live her own life and to explore and pursue her own wishes. Since the only thing she learned was to subordinate herself to the man, her self-sacrificial and passive existence as a woman was already predetermined.

I want to create a new Solveig which breaks her feminine predestination and discovers and enjoys her own sexuality without any sense of shame, with naturalness and curiosity, without being intrusive feminine or sexy.

Normality of sexual enjoyment

The ice is not only a metaphorical image for the phallus, but rather it represents the normality of the pleasure we get from eating tasty food. Just as we do not feel shy about culinary enjoyment, in my opinion we don´t need to have it while enjoying our sexuality, but to accept it as the normality of our human existence and nurture it in a healthy, natural way.

Female sexuality and oral sex in modern society

Now I live in a democratic, western society in which sexuality is no longer taboo. Nevertheless, I believe that female sexuality is still strongly influenced by chauvinist, conservative and outdated ideologies. How many of us in fact have a free attitude towards sex and one’s own sexuality? Often we only pretend to be sexually liberated, so that we don´t have to consciously confront ourselves with our inner inhibitions and fears caused by historical and cultural influences.

In order to answer my questions and to bring more emphasis to female sexuality, I would like to further develop my project Solveig and conduct interviews with different women and make further video recordings.