Text on practice Clara

Draft 21.02.23

1. Introduction Clara Franke is a multidisciplinary artist and designer currently creating lens based work, costume designs and functional art such as clothing and pottery. Her interests focus on ecofeminism, homes and their artifacts and experimentation with natural materials. Clara was born in 1998 in suburban Hamburg and lived & studied in Albuquerque (attending Media Arts Collaborative Charter School in 2015), Groningen (Bachelor in Design at Academie Minerva 2022), Berlin (graphic design internship with THE PEOPLE° in 2021), Barcelona and Rotterdam (currently following the Master "Lens Based Media" at Piet Zwart Institute). During her bachelor's degree Clara decided to study Illustration, Graphic Design and Product Design, while constantly creating photography and graduating with a clothing collection. This shows her interest in a very broad field of design/art practices. While constantly including new mediums in her practice one will always find an overlapping signature, marked by an ethereal softness in an organic, muted color palette. combined with a sense of intimacy and activism.

2. Recent Lens Based Work; Feminist Groundwork

Recently Clara has been working on the short film “Amber”. The film gives many references to the ethics and aesthetics of her lens based work.

Amber and Clara met during their teenage years. Clara portrays their (physically)intimate friendship as a symbol for female connection and Amber's knowledge on plants, specifically herbs, as a symbol for nature as a source of healing that when treated with care and knowledge can be used for healing purposes.

The work is addressing eating disorders and the connection she has found in this friendship, when sharing both of their experiences, which partially stem from a strong sense of comparison between, especially young, women. This marks Claras background and feminist groundwork of her process. Instead of feeding further into comparisons and jealousy, the two were able to bond at the ages of 16 and 17, over their experiences with disordered eating behaviors.

Generally speaking the maker strives to create an empowering setting for herself and the women she portrays in which the layer of comparison moves towards the capturing and celebration of their beauty. Challenged by the deeply ingrained male gaze in photography, especially editorial fashion photography, Clara sees great need for female photographers, capturing women with the aim to empower instead of sexualize. One of her greatest inspirations in this direction has been Carlota Guerrero. Guerrero creates photographs that connect women to become one organism, visuals induced by her first LSD trip(Psychedelics have also become a place of self development and reflection for Clara in the past years). Images that celebrate femininity and the essential connection that lies within.

As described on Guerreros website; „Hers is a sidereal trajectory that has much to do with the spirit of the times and with her vision of women as goddesses. A very special goddess: pagan, a friend of her sisters, who does not attend to the industry’s canons of thinness and with a point between the classic, the innocent and the irreverent.“

This feminine energy, turning into Botticelli-esque compositions, Clara likes to describe as ethereal, divine. Depicted in images which portray women as angelic, strong yet playful, soft, sensual. Visuals of women in skin toned, flowing fabrics and winged. These are traits she strives to visualize in females, in a setting where they can feel safe and supported.

3. From Fantasy to Ecofeminism Coming back to the visual of wings, which Clara has been coming back to since her childhood, from drawing fairies to creating props and costumes for her own shoots and the Theatre play “Narrow Spaces”, which will premiere in April in Groningen. This visual is first inspired by her childhood readings being mostly fantasy books (for example the Dragonrider series by Cornelia Funke, The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende or Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll). Still now Clara enjoys reading stories embracing fantasy and a child-like vision of the Anthropocene such as Le Petit Prince or Walter Moers, which describe her Character as one of a dreamer; embracing escapist behavior into worlds of dreams and absurd creatures, far from the reality she lives in. But at the same time Clara sees creatures like Dragons and fairies as visualization of the surrealness of nature itself. A power and beauty we can hardly fathom. This is where the idea of ecofeminism comes into play. What Donna Haraway describes as “the diverse earth-wide tentacular powers and forces collected things with names like Naga, Gaia, Tangaroa, Terra, Haniyasu-hime, Spider Woman, Pachamama, Oya, Gorgo, Raven, A’akuluujjusi, and many, many more.”, describes a personification of nature as female. The ecofeminist approach argues that both women and nature have been dominated and degraded by patriarchy and capitalism. Donna Haraway finds a path to betterment in what she calls kinmaking, meaning the vision of a unity and family-esque connection between beings that are not genetically family, or even of a different species. Ecofeminism seeks to promote a more holistic and compassionate relationship between humans and the environment, imagining more sustainable and equitable ways of living to take action towards an environmentally conscious society.

4. Experimentation with Natural Materials; Creating Functional Art Even though Clara generally does not support the idea of shaming the individual for the climate crisis, she sees an essential role in the movement towards rethinking consumerist behaviors and inspiring to move back towards own creations, meaning slow productions that also benefit one’s mental health.

She herself practiced such in general research and try outs of natural materials like clay, alpaca wool, upcycled fabrics, eco latex and more. Generally speaking the transformation of natural products. One of the companies inspiring her most is Paloma Wool. Paloma Wool, started by Paloma Lanna in Barcelona is „acknowledging the fashion industry’s shortcomings enables us to challenge the system we work in.“ They work with local producers around their base in Barcelona and frequently collaborate with artists on small scale produced collections.

Claras graduation project was the creation of a sustainable clothing collection, made from second hand and self made materials. She chose to also create a magazine on the topic of the fashion industry, reflecting on editorial fashion photography and the meaning behind the pieces we own, the stories a piece of clothing can tell. Next to the magazine and clothing pieces Clara created a fashion film and a one shot process video as well as photography prints. The one shot documented the whole 10 minute creation of a two piece. This approach to combine her mediums is something Clara could imagine bringing further in the future, celebrating the mesmerizing effect creation can have on our society, that is as disconnected as ever from creation of daily life objects as ever. In her installation she also spent several hours live spinning wool, to add a performative element and show how, with little experience, one can create own pieces from the start.

The products that Clara is creating usually are asymmetrical and don’t strive to look machine made. In a home space she believes we are usually already surrounded by too many perfectly symmetrical, square objects that disconnect from an intuitive human experience.

Her graduation year marked a generally stronger focus on crafts such as clothing making (sewing, spinning wool, crocheting, knitting) and pottery (making organically shaped rather practical objects), which she learned in Barcelona.

Pottery has been her meditation and connector to other creators, while creating objects that can generate a calmness in peoples homes.

5. Past Work; Home spaces and Their Artifacts

The internal development and conflict when changing homes, the general privilege of having a home and the meaning of every artifact inside one's home have been recurring ideas for Claras as well.

Clara for example created the short film “Ostblock”, on her travels through what then was Eastern Germany and the USSR. This was inspired by a collection of dia photographs she found in her grandmother Gisela's basement as well as the photo albums her grandmother created and kept for every trip she has done since her late 20s. The documentary short film alternately shows her grandmother in her home telling about her journey and a selection of the actual dia photographs. In the stories told give examples to the felt division between east and West Europe during that time, from the experience of one living in West Germany.

Clara also created two photo books that relate to the idea of homes. One of which has been self published in 2021. The book “The ORKZ” documents 50+people and their rooms/homes in a squatted hospital community, where Clara lived with a total of 250 other people between 2019-2022. The book gave her the excuse of the camera to step into people's personal spaces and start a conversation based on the artifacts they surround themselves with. She explored how the wide variety of people build themselves a home within this community and built a network within. This project focussed more on using photography as a tool to start intimate conversations and situations, being one of Clara's comfort zones. This approach started when working at events to photograph, where the socially anxious creator would be surrounded by initially strangers for 15 hours on end.

The second photobook(2023, unpublished) documents her time in Berlin in 2021, which combines her friend Maxis poetry with her own photography. the book serves as an analysis of what Berlin is becoming and who they felt they were becoming through moving here. The photography is completely analog: winter city shots, portraits of those she met and surrounded herself with and photos from protests against the housing crisis that became very present during her time in the city. A city that was known for the freedoms it would offer but that is now victim to gentrification, closing down most communities and creative spaces.

Having an activist approach to the housing crisis in several of the places she lived in, Clara would like to take this further in the future. possibly through visualizing more alternative ways, sustainable ways that humans can coexist in domestic spaces.

6. Future Vision

Thinking forward in her practice, Clara sees a vision of further interdisciplinary practices leading to the creation of a brand. What to her used to seem superficial has gained importance when realizing the possibilities such an approach could bring. From installations that calm and educate on consumption behaviors and slow creation processes to generally giving an alternative platform for consumption.

Basically taking her Bachelor graduation collection further, creating a more broad variety of objects could be a pathway. These objects could be simply candle holders, photography prints or clothing.

It would be important to Clara to document processes and be as transparent as possible, and to further research on the ideas behind ecofeminism and exploring new natural materials to work with. Materials like kelp, linen or bamboo.

The products would be presented in photography and film that show the level of calmth that Clara seeks for in most of her work. She, struggling with anxiety herself, lives a lifestyle that is often overwhelming in speed. The work with clay and wool has forced her to slow down and focus on one process for many hours on end.

A company focussed on slow production with natural materials, which translates into peoples homes through the created objects could be an antidote to the constantly speeding up rhythm of life in the anthropocene.

A rhythm not giving space for connection and reflection on how we interact with each other and Nature as a whole.