The Venus of Hohle Fels & Paeleolithic Bone Flutes

A sound installation, an interactive dance performance and a ritual performance that may have happened 40,000 years ago between two women; a dancer and a flautist.

We don’t know if it was a man or woman who sculpted the Venus von Hohle Fels out of mammoth bone. Therefore we can never know the perspective of the artist but we can assume she was a goddess of beauty or similar. We presume that she was crafted in the beauty ideal of a female at that time, approximately 40,000 years ago.
The sculpture raises questions about how society has imagine and imaged women to be, both now and in the past. The differences between where we have come from as less developed homosapien women to where we are now might seem far but in many ways perhaps not. How have years of training and social dictatorship made women different to how they once were? Ideals of beauty have changed so much. Looking at the way we see the female body today and how it should be. But is it the opposite of what it was then?

Venus the Ritual:
A piece about the Venus and the strength she brought to women. Pure flute and pure unadulterated dance.

Venus the Woman and Ancient Goddess:
An interactive performance with interactive visuals and sound based on the Venus Von Hohlenfels.

Venus the Ancient Sound:
Layers of mammoth flute in an interactive installation. Participants can play the flute when they otherwise wouldn’t be able to blow sounds out of it.
As if you are in a cave and when you move there is a cave woman playing the flute for you in accordance to your movement.

The Venus of Hohle Fels & Paeleolithic Bone Flutes