Martina-Sofie Wildberger shows her installation P-Pants in Action in Lemme. Since 2017, Wildberger has been regularly going on high-altitude tours. She noticed that the higher she went, the fewer women were present on the mountain. From then on, she posted photos of high-alpine summit ascents with ice axe, rope and crampons on Instagram with the hashtags #feministalpineclub and #fac. Wildberger sees mountaineering as (self-)empowerment and the high mountains as a space where gender conventions can be overcome. The Feminist Alpine Club (FAC), founded by the artist, is on the one hand a tool to explore these concerns artistically and to address them in the art context, and on the other hand it brings artistic, activist actions into the realm of alpinism. For the FAC, she developed the prototype of the P(ee) Pants: a pair of high-altitude touring pants that allow women to urinate safely in a rope team – without leaving the rope and putting themselves in danger (e.g., that of a crevasse fall on a glacier). This prototype and the Feminist Alpine Club are the focus of Wildberger’s exhibition at Lemme.
Martina-Sofie Wildberger, born 1985 in Zurich, lives and works in Geneva. She graduated with a Diploma and MA Fine Arts from the Haut école d’art et de design in Geneva and a BA and MA in Art History from the University of Geneva. Wildberger’s focus is on performance, which she explores not only live but also in various media – video, photography, sound, publications. She has won numerous prizes (including the Manor Kunstpreis Schaffhausen, Swiss Art Award, Cahiers d’Artistes Pro Helvetia) and regularly shows her work in Switzerland and internationally.
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