Despite feminist achievements in recent years, patriarchal structures still permeate our everyday lives, influence our thinking and normalise the ideological and physical repression of female and non-binary bodies. Mona Rosa counters this structural oppression with her artistic demand for visibility.

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Growing up in the countryside, the 33-year-old artist has not been deterred from pursuing her childhood dream as an artist, despite the art world's structural misogyny. In the meantime, Mona Rosa is active as a cycle audio book producer and also in the FATart team. With her art, the artist enriches the feminist struggle and contributes to an understanding of art that promotes diversity and variety instead of patriarchal consumption.

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Themes such as sexism, being a woman, menstruation, ideals of beauty and sexuality characterise the work of this woman from Winterthur by choice with roots in Central Switzerland. By documenting the invisible and social taboos, Mona Rosa wants to provoke thought - to provoke discourse on topics that have been hushed up for too long. The exhibition Zyklusheld*innen calls for a critical assessment of social progress and a questioning of currently prevailing power structures.

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In Kosmos, three multi-media works illustrate the realities of women's lives and non-binary persons that are still so readily suppressed in social discourses, state systems and mass media.

The multimedia work An Tagen Wie Diesen was first exhibited at FATart Fair 2021. Based on the month of February 2018, 28 everyday menstrual situations are catalogued and recorded. Whether at the office, in sports, at university or on the ski slope - An Tagen Wie Diesen shows how the female cycle is overcome in everyday life without complaint, even when social structures show little consideration. The sketch series Frauenleiden (Women's Suffering) consists of ink drawings that are created every day in Mona Rosa's studio. In her first exhibition, the series encourages people to deal with pain and suffering and to recognise that this suffering is not "normal" and "part of it" but

 

Exhibitions in the "FATecke"- at Kosmos Buchsalon Zurich prevents us from freely living out our natural aliveness, creativity, love and desire. Lastly, Mona Rosa tackles sexist ideals of beauty with Miss Universe. For the artist, intimate surgery and the American beauty queen craze represent the extremisation of patriarchal role models. As a counterbalance, the vaginal 3D collages show female intimacy as an enigmatic but omnipotent universe. Artfully intertwined, the labia open a view into the infinity of the cosmos.

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Despite the urgency and emotionality of the themes addressed, Cycle Heroines shows the natural power of cyclical processes and encourages us to transform social shame into pride and appreciation. Mona Rosa's Cosmos offers space for discourse, conversation, reflection and - most importantly - solidarity and connection.

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The exhibition by Nathalie Diserens can be seen from 21.08.22 to 21.11.22 at Kosmos Buchsalon Zurich

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Text: Maja Renfer