IGNOSCENTIA

The project IGNOSCENTIA is the artist’s autobiographic story of child sexual abuse. Sina Niemeyer combines different methods like photography, writing, graphic design and multiple layers of material such as old family pictures, destroyed images, self-portraits and found objects. She uses metaphorical videography to process a conversation she had with the perpetrator. It is a self-reflective revelation but also serves as an identifying ground, considering that statistics estimate that somewhere between every third and fifth woman will experience sexual abuse in her life. IGNOSCENTIA shows the viewer on different levels what sexual abuse can mean to someone’s life by tackling vague and subtle emotions that are often difficult to analyze with just words. It furthermore aims to remind other survivors that they are not alone and can help them to reflect their own feelings. A book of this work was published in May 2018 with Ceiba Editions.

In her project The Many Wives of Mr. ______, Sina Niemeyer gives a differentiated insight view on the highly stigmatized centuries-old business of mail-order brides. Based on a random find of letters from Filipinas willing to marry to a Berlin bachelor in the 1980s, she sets out on a search; for the authors and the recipient, for love and for truths in these alliances, which at first seem to be based solely on mutual exploitation. She takes part in a singles tour and social events, sleeps in the same hotels as the men, conducts interviews and travels around the country. In doing so, she questions the capitalist romanticised idea of marriage, the predominant image of women and the neo-colonialist structures that make these transnational relationships possible in the first place. Through the skillful interweaving of old and new, she draws a holistic picture - while some men objectify women to the extreme, others seem naive or were even urged by their parents to finally find a wife. In addition to photographs, Sina Niemeyer works with video interviews, old archive pictures, documents and objects such as dried flowers.