The series “Don’t forget to resist” was part of my residency at the Friche de Belle de Mai in Marseille and is a visual exploration of women as part of the resistance movement and civil obedience and disobedience. I have studied the lives of women resistance fighters against the Nazi and Vichy regimes during the Second World War and portrayed Marie-Madeleine Fourcade and Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier and Sophie Scholl, among others, in radiant colors as a tribute to their foresight, courage and perseverance.I am interested in the source of courage that enabled individuals to break ranks. I can well imagine how difficult it is to face up to the pressure to conform and to be ‘brought into line’. Images of sports education, school sports, the League of German Girls and today’s yoga and aerobics studios as well as film footage from a French military training camp for female soldiers, which show people in symmetry and excitement, form the antithesis to the light-hearted portraits of the resistance fighters.

The series was realised in a six-month residency project at the artist residency Triangle France – Asterides in the Friche de Belle de Mai, Marseille (January to August 2018) and was part of the exhibition “Noce” at the Friche de Belle de Mai.