Pacto Femininum #1: Ane Lan

Opening reception: Wednsday 8 April, 7 - 9 pm

Pacto feminium is a new body of work by Ane Lan developed specifically for the Fotogalleriet Foundation. It references the inter-relationship between history, politics and culture through the lens of gender and queer theory. With new photographic and video works, Lan proposes representations of seven roles of female suffering.

The video work contains seven chapters. In each, the audience is presented with human dilemmas in situations of marriage, unfaithfulness, dislocation, rape, prostitution, the loss of one's child and forms of mental illnesses. Each scenario matches cliche perspective and expectations of how we see these scenarios. Ane Lan sings a mesmerizing tune. We are hypnotized.

Ane Lan stages himself as a victim in each of the seven photographs that he presents. He becomes the victim as a way of empathy, to connect with the emotional state of the feminine self.

The title, Pacto Femininum, is a construct. It consists of two words, Pact and Feminium, stylistically latinized, suggesting an antagonistic link between self and the other, in a bind to suppress and victimize.

Ane Lan is a male character of the spectacle that desires the female role. As personae, Lan is a more distinct identity without any ambiguous role interpretations – and thus he shows the construction of gender clearly and without any doubtful room for misinterpretation.

Later this month Ane Lan will be participating in Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid. Futher he will present his project Migrating Birds at the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, China in the spring of 2010. Ane Lan is the holder of a five years working grant.

Pacto Femininum #1
Ane Lan