Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022
Stefanie Schaut
Belgium
www.stefanieschaut.me
About
Stefanie Schaut (1990) is a visual artist living and working in
Belgium. She studied at Luca School of Arts with a master
degree in Fine Arts, Photography. She’s part of VONK
Ateliers back in Belgium and has recently been selected
as a ‘Fresh Eyes’-talent 2022 supported by GUP Magazine.
Currently she’s working on a personal project together with
Bieke Depoorter and other photographers, supported by
BREEDBEELD. Her work has been published in magazines
and expos throughout the years.
Stefanie Schaut wants to break taboos through her work.
Nature plays a central role in her photography. She finds
inspiration and frustration in the way we live in the world.
We are overwhelmed by stimuli and forget our identity and
relationship with society.
The aim of her images is to confront the viewer; to let the
viewer turn inwards in order to reflect on their being. In her
photography she creates a distance from reality. The slow
nature of her photography symbolizes the way in which one
should look at the images - intimately and silently. She is
looking for a visualtranslation of the invisible emotional world
of man.
La Que Sabe (working title)
This project seeks to find a common factor between ‘Mother
Earth’ and the oppressed woman in our society. It is a
start-up project in collaboration with Bieke De Poorter and
Breedbeeld Traject 4. Nature has long served man instead of
man serves nature. It is exploited and dominated by man. By
thus, the image in our society is created that we are separate
from nature or even more, stand above nature.
The images in this project are inspired by the book ‘Women
Who Run With the Wolves’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. This is
a book I found and read during my stay in Arteles Creative
Center.
Quote book:
“Wildlife and the Wild Woman are both endangered species.
Over time, we have seen the feminine instinctive nature
looted, driven back, and overbuilt. For long periods it has
been mismanaged like the wildlife and the wildlands. For
several thousand years, as soon and as often as we turn
our backs, it is relegated to the poorest land in the psyche.
The spiritual lands of Wild Woman have, throughout history,
been plundered or burnt, dens bulldozed, and natural cycles
forced into unnatural rhythms to please others.”
During my stay, I got a chance to photograph the female
artists and women who worked in this center (I now call them
friends, since we bonded quiet a bit). I photographed them in
a natural setting to undertone the importancy of the wildness
in women. Seeing this as a positive thing, rather than a
negative one – it’s a way to break the patriarchy.