Winnie Herbstein is exploring the way we’re told the things we believe.
Taking ethnographic film as a point of departure, I am thinking about who and what is given permission to enter the frame, and whose voices are allowed to prescribe meaning. Within my work, I often use personal anecdote or memoirs as a way to access alternative histories. In recent exhibitions I have begun looking at the ‘official’ or essentialist views surrounding gender and technologies; how this leads to the gendering of workplaces as well as to the materials used.
Solo shows include: Before I could speak, X spoke, Outpost Gallery. Norwich, England (2017); Soft Shoulder, SWG3 Gallery. Glasgow, Scotland (2016). Group exhibitions include: Spring Season, Hospitalfield Arts. Arbroath, Scotland (2017); Domestic Observations, Jace Space. Los Angeles, USA (2016); Bit Between Teeth, Sattler and Pötszch, Leipzig (2016).
Circling Roads
HD Video / 07:48 min / 2016
‘Circling Roads’ was filmed over a week spent with a girl racer in Arbroath, Scotland. The video tells the story of a car crash on the coastal road to Montrose, whilst documenting the ‘built, not bought’ culture of the east coast racers.
Screw us and we will multiply
HD Video / 06:51 min / 2016
‘Screw us and we multiply’ was shown as part of ‘Bit Between Teeth’, an exhibition with Sofia Duchovny at the artist run space Sattler & Pötzsch in Liepzig. It was made in conversation with the work of Duchovny and sets up shifting narratives around the relationship to movement, protest and sexuality, exploring the inherent power dynamics within these positions. The video stills, abstracted from their original forms as views through car windows sit alongside images of heteronormative exchanges. The video, displayed on dual screens during the exhibition, presented two voices that circulated in and out of consent.