Helen Anna Flanagan & Josefin Arnell: Blood Sisters

Blood Sisters (2020) is a collaborative video work made by the artists Josefin Arnell and Helen Anna Flanagan. The student-rich location of Groningen was used as a site to research the old student fraternities present within the city. The artists were particularly drawn to the traditional hazing rituals, using them as a loose starting point to create a fictional initiation ceremony for four older females. Hazing rituals often involve forcing new members into humiliating acts and are considered to help strengthen group cohesion and identity. The work took an interest in these rituals and a number of corresponding topics, including the abject physicality of a woman’s body, conformity, social pressure, age, and agency. As such, the work playfully explores power, humiliation, and hierarchies in relation to fear in public space, focusing on shame as a way to control and manipulate behavior.

(Helen Anna Flanagan & Josefin Arnell)

Proposed by Cornelius Ferber

 

Helen Anna Flanagan

Helen Anna Flanagan (b. 1988, Birmingham United Kingdom) was a resident at HISK Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten, Gent from 2019-20 and is a graduate of Falmouth University of Arts (UK) and AKV St Joost (NL). Her work has been awarded the IKOB Feminist Art Prize (2019), the VISIO Young Talent Acquisition Prize (2020), second prize of Art Contest Brussels (2021) and a fellowship with Needcompany (2021). Her work has been presented at WIELS, Brussels; IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen; CENTRALE | lab, Brussels; Aspex, Portsmouth; Museum M, Leuven; Focal Point Gallery, Southend; Kunsthal Gent; Projektraum 145, Berlin; Netwerk Aalst; IMAI, Düsseldorf; M HKA, Antwerp; CAMPO Victoria, Gent; MOMA Odess, among others.

Josefin Arnell

Josefin Arnell (b. 1984, Ljusnedal, Sweden) is a graduate of the Sandberg Institute and a former resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. In 2018, she was awarded the Theodora Niemeijer Prijs for emerging female artists in The Netherlands. Her work has been presented at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Lily Robert Gallery, Paris; 3HD Festival, Berlin; Auto Italia South East, London; MOSCOW International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow; and Kunsthalle Münster, Münster.

 

Credit: Helen Anna Flanagan & Josefin Arnell, Blood Sisters, 2020, Video still