The international exhibition Neskamenelá / Unpetrified brings artworks by women artists in various media of visual art. They are united by the common characteristic of pushing the boundaries of genres and media in authentic accounts of their female experience in the arena of the art world, where they have been able to keep intact the refuge of creation, in "the room of their own" as in their inner world. At the same time, they translate their experiences of partnership, parenthood and siblinghood and relationships as such into their works.
The theme of the exhibition, inspired by the works of these artists, is the notion of the individual artistic programme as a process of shedding the rigidity of the canons of art history. It is the unmasking of the body and the face as typical subjects of a long petrified representation and their decision to stop "petrifying" anymore. Petrification is also a mental state of arrest and stasis. Not death but transformation and the no longer evolving entity. If we can reverse "petrification" we will accept our being as a gradual transformation and fragility, including aging and body changes that shatter the media-imposed notion of wholeness and perfection. In mythologies, when people are transformed into stone, salt, or another mineral, they rarely have the opportunity to come back. Returning back to a living body is more of a fairy tale or fantasy motif. Even in these, they only come back to life if their form doesn't break or disintegrate in the meantime.
The contemporary art of women as "unpetrified" suggests a reclaiming of the ability of women artists to act, to express themselves and to bring new issues of art into visibility. Their work has sharply departed from historical constraints and stereotypes. For women artists, "unpetrified" means breaking out of traditional norms and expectations, exploring different themes, styles, and materials, and offering the experiment of experiencing a different beauty and freedom to the viewer and audience. Through hybridity and fragmentation of the body, these artists explore the diverse ways in which the patriarchal norms are subject. In doing so, they are able to give full-blooded expression to a plurality and diversity of life experiences that challenge monolithic and essentialist narratives.
The works on display work with a 'lightness' similar to that described by Italo Calvino in his late 1980s lecture for literature as contrasting with the paralysing effect of Medusa. According to him, 'lightness' was a quality characterised by agility and nimbleness. It could convey complex ideas and emotions with playfulness, grace and clarity, unencumbered by excessive weight or seriousness. The Medusa Effect of our culture can represent anything that immobilizes or petrifies the human spirit-fear, stagnation, or the weight of past traumas. Calvino's notion of "lightness" celebrates creativity and the ability to transcend limits and offers an alternative perspective, encouraging constant movement and openness to all possibilities and futures.

There is also a subtle erotic charge to the exhibition Unpetrified, as the exploration of taboo images, connections and ideas, as well as hybrid beings and their traces, opens up spaces for other conceptions of sexuality and desire. It is reminiscent of the power of Octavia Butler's stories, who in her fascinating feminist science fiction novels explored power, identity and sexuality precisely through the preoccupations of encounters with extraterrestrial beings. The disruption of normative understandings of intimacy, individuality, and the conventions of single-people bonding, calls even today for a transformation of society to one that is freer and more democratic, but also more caring, compassionate, and kinder to the acceptance of difference and otherness. This interpretation is also about reclaiming one's own fantasies, often stigmatized and repressed, precisely through non-traditional and otherworldly beings, worlds, objects or ideas.
The unlearning of Medusa's perspective can also be understood as a detachment from patriarchal structures. The analogy of the mythological Medusa's spell that turns individuals to stone is often used metaphorically to represent the paralyzing effects of fear, trauma, or negative experiences in our lives. The breaking of "stones" collected during a lifetime of encounters with various "Medusa's" can symbolize overcoming obstacles or inner demons. Through strange seeming alien beings and their alien forms, faces depicting emotions rather than human heads, fragments of bodies and their imprints in objects, the works of these artists invite us to take personal responsibility for the destruction of our "inner" Medusa in imaginings of hybrid beings liberating our attachment to the status quo. Often with humour, they quietly and subtly demolish ingrained, petrified doubts, past traumas or negative thought patterns. Breaking free from the influence of Medusa's gaze means self-awareness and healing, which helps create alternative worlds and possibilities in which (not only) women can assert their own stories and experiences. In doing so, they can dissolve the limitations that come from the history of patriarchal society as well as the contemporary ones that are enacted by mainstream cultural representations of sexuality, gender, femininity (and masculinity). In this way, a new, different, "unpetrified" beauty can continually be born and grow.

Lucia G. Stach
 

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