Out Lookers

Verena Blok
2022

In “Out Lookers”, Verena Blok portrays older women who reclaim their space in public. Witnessing these women age while she herself was maturing into womanhood, the dominant Western discourse privileging youthful femininity rendered them slowly invisible. The film uses snippets of candid conversation between the artist and the women about the transitional nature of femininity. At times they speak through a book they love, Olga Tokarczuk's“DriveYour PlowOverTheBonesOfThe Dead” (2009), a bleakly comic mystery novel about a post-menopausal woman who raises fierce questions about human behavior.

About the artist:
Verena Blok has a deep interest in personal histories and narrative storytelling. Intrigued by the way cultural and political factors influence one’s life, she uses her lens-based practice to shed light on the inner life and everyday ‘reality’ of her protagonists. As a Dutch-Polish dual citizen, Blok maintains a keen awareness of her positioning between East and West, and her work often refers to the gendered performance of the self. Encounters with her subjects take place in intimate settings, which serve as the core of and the fuel for her work.