Nadja Verena Marcin - Ophelia

OPHELIA is an interdisciplinary performance that took place at the Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken as a live performance and is subsequently presented as a video installation. The work is inspired by the painting of the same title by Sir John Everett Millais (1829 – 1896), in which the tragic figure of Ophelia from Shakespeare's drama Hamlet is depicted as a dying beauty. Driven mad by grief and unrequited love, this female figure has always exerted a strong attraction on artists, theorists, and writers, and has appeared in many different contexts. For Nadja Verena Marcin, OPHELIA refers to "a parallel between the historical speechlessness of women towards male dominance and the speechlessness of society towards the destruction of nature". Dressed in "Ophelia's dress" and equipped with diving gear, the artist appears in an aquarium trying to read a text by the Russian poet Daniil Kharms about human perception under water.

In addition, the exhibition presents photographic and video works in which the artist self-confidently deconstructs the images of women in Hollywood cinema with a feminist sense of humor.