In residency at BASE Milano, Eléa Jeanne Schmitter worked on a new project that seeks to define masculinities in sport: the “official” history of modern sport has largely been written by men, for men, and about men. In the 1980s, critical feminist theory led to a shift in research, with scholars highlighting how sport constructs and reinforces gender-based power relations. Even today, the strength required by many sports is read as both material and symbolic evidence of men’s biological superiority. The research will be the starting point for a visual and performative exploration within the residency.
Eléa Jeanne Schmitter was in residence at BASE on the occasion of the New Grand Tour, the multidisciplinary program of artistic residencies for young European talents promoted by the French Embassy in Italy and the Institut Français Italia.
Eléa Jeanne Schmitter
is a photographer, a conceptual artist or a researcher, she could be a little bit of everything, depending on the characters she interprets, the rituals she imagines, the parts of life she narrates and the feelings she shares.
Her practice evolves through the process of an essentially utopian journey, of a narrative that presupposes a quest, the search for true love, spirituality and political ideology.
Depending on the context investigated, her practice transforms: at times it takes the form of investigative journalism, as in the case of the work on the Sugar Babies in Canada, or sociological study as in “40ans 70kg,” a work on the invisibility of women starting with the research of activist Caroline Criado Perez. At the core: artistic work that focuses on the power dynamics that permeate Western and contemporary societies, providing spaces for the emancipation of marginalized bodies.
