Bettina WitteVeen
Fotografer – Penulis Jerman
Email: bettina@bettinawitteveen.com
Sisterhood results from shared experiences in a female body and shared understanding from living in a patriarchal society. Sisterhood provides Refuge and Power. That is why Sisterhood is Sacred. What does Sacredness mean? To value something or someone outside of your personal interest. To serve in order to uphold and protect. To do no harm because we cannot harm what we revere, I contend that the capacity to understand and pursue the Sacred is one of humankind’s most noble desires and elevates us to a higher state of consciousness. Kinship is what I feel and Sacredness is what I seek, that is why I published a book titled Sacred Sister.
The cover image of Medusa as the monster is not inviting. In the myth, anyone who looks directly at Medusa is turned into stone. Perseus slays Medusa with the air of a mirror that deflects her gaze. In my book I dare you to look at yourself in the mirror. I confront you with all the aspects of our female psyche: the positive and the negative. Our Shadow Self turns against us if we lack the courage and honesty to look closely-both as women collectively as well as individuals. We have to be truthful about ourselves-otherwise there is no true refuge and no true power.
The Greek myth is the story of one woman, Athena, betraying another, Medusa, because of jealousy. Athena, the Greek Goddess of wisdom, is the all-rational mind. She personifies the woman who suppresses her non-rational side and her sexuality. When Athena finds the sensual Medusa in her temple making love (or in another version, being raped) by Poseidon, she, in a fit of jealous rage, turns Medusa into a hideous monster, with snakes on her head, whose stare kills. The myth of Athena and Medusa explains why women knowingly hurt other women, and why a sister betrays a sister. To become the healing and nurturing leaders the world so desperately needs, we need to understand how a victim becomes a victimizer and face up to this truth. Lam showing the painful experience of Medusa as she is transformed into a monster. I photographed Balinese trance dancers to whom the myth of Medusa is familiar as the Balinese Demon Queen of the Leyaks, called Rangda.
Sacred Sister: “Myths are the dreams of (man) humankind” Carl Gustave Jung
I am interested in our dreams because as an artist I want to understand the human condition.
As a feminist, I want to understand why we are oppressed. 1 am German- born and studied Latin for nine years ata Humanist Gymnasium. I internalize the misogyny of Mythology.
Men are the Heroes, the Women not s0 much. The Hero male represents order and all that is desirable to maintain an authoritarian society. Women embody all the human weaknesses and represent chaos, danger, and all that is a threat to upholding the patriarchy.
An uncontrolled (angry) woman is dangerous. A strong, independent woman is dangerous. Nature as the ultimate female power is terrifying to the patriarchal mind. Our societies have effectively attempted to dominate nature which has given us a false sense of power. If we go to war with Nature, Nature will win.
I expanded my research into other cultures and became very interested in Asian mythology. My grandfather was a Tamil scholar who lived in Chennai for 20 years. I guess my affinity for Hinduism is in my DNA. Today Lam a practicing Hindu Buddhist. I venerate Tara as the manifestation of compassion and the Buddha as the 8th avatar of Lord Vishnu.
I came to Indonesia in 1989 and fell in love. I traveled the archipelago extensively spending considerable time with tribal communities. Observing their rich cultures of dance and rituals, I saw many similarities in the stories told to the mythology I was already familiar with. I invited women to pose for me and I photographed them as both conventional portraits, and as metaphors of womanhood. Sacred Sister is also a guide for the individual woman to become her own Sacred Sister, an enlightened in her own right.
Three old and formidable women also referred to as the Moirae or Parcae, or Norms in Norse mythology. They are the personification of inescapable destiny that applies to gods as well as humans. Clotho represents that which was, Atropos that which is, and Lachesis that which will be. Together they spin the thread of life weaving is a quintessential part of human society.
Textile making is one of the great traditions in Indonesia. I have been retained by Hypatia Pte Singapore to create a fashion line that will bring the sophistication of Indonesian women artisans such as Serat, Sulam, and Batik to the International market to preserve the rich, cultural heritage, and to help make women economically independent.
A society of woman warriors whose kingdom was believed to be to the north of the civilized world and who tolerated men only as servants or as fathers of female children.
They cut off one breast in order to aceommodate a bow and arrow, their deity is Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. The Amazons fought several battles against the Greeks.
The Amazon River was named after them by Gaspar de Carvajal who was believed to have entered their land when he encountered some ferocious looking tribal women in the river’s estuary in 1542.
When I visited the Asmat region of Papua New Guinea in 1995, I had the great honor of being adopted by Lucia, an Asmat elder and formidable woman who became my facilitator for the photo shoor.
The female Buddha and personification of all-encompassing compassion, Tarais also referred to as Guan Yin in China and Ouan An in Vietnam. She is a major Buddhist Deity credited with tremendous powers who will come to the aid of anyone invocating her name or mantra. Tara is also considered to be the mother not only of humankind but of all sentient beings not only of this world but of all the worlds that ever were, that are and that will be. Her heart is said to be the pulse of time and her life is the cosmic dream.
I am a follower of Tara and compassionate action is my guiding principle. I intentionally portraited young, vulnerable girls in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia as the Goddess to invoke a sense of responsibility in the viewer. I believe if we can serve the most vulnerable in our midst, we are creating kinder, more just, and ultimately happier, societies.
The Hindu Goddess Kali is multifaceted and complex. And she is everything.
I found my model on a street corner in New York City-the photo shoot took place in my studio, She is a dancer in front of a green backdrop, to allude to her greatest power, as Ma Kali, the Mother of Nature.
Born from Durga during battle, Kali is female power in its most terrifying form. She represents the dark night of the soul when the veil of illusion is ripped apart and the truth emerges.
When the demons threaten to take over the world, when Armageddon has arrived, Kali saves the world by licking up the blood of a great demon drop by drop so thousands of new demons cannot arise. Such is her power.
“And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman… she was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent,” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
The female transformative power is greatly threatening to the male mind. The colonial mind, in particular, projected this fear on the women of colonized societies.
Kali has led me to my worldwide art project, “The Heart of Darkness” based on Joseph Conrad’s novel. In several site-specific installations, I confront the dark heart of warfare, including the role of women in war.
Kali Rising
Kali is rising worldwide in the female consciousness as we sce increased social injustice and the continued destruction of Mother Earth. Wherever I go I encounter women who are angry and want change. In the U.S. where I live, women have voted in unprecedented numbers especially young women, as the Supreme Court has taken away fundamental rights and delegated women to secondary status.
Historically it has been women who brought about revolutions the French, Russian, Iranian, and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine to name a few. The Femen Movement is reclaiming the female body to very successfully communicate the movement’s political message.
Kali Hecate
Women increasingly seek to validate female power and reject demonization. There is a growing movement to reinterpret myths in feminist terms.
Whereas Kali is badass without asking permission, her equivalent in western culture — Baba Yaga (Russian) has become an Eco Feminist Icon.
Hecate (Greek) is a Titaness associated with the occult and Shades. Hecate is a Shamaness, who at night sends forth demons and spectral beings, and like the religious fanatics who as part of worshipping Kali, she too preys on travelers. Hecate walks with a disembodied and can change her appearance to seduce any lover of her choosing.
Hecate is a symbol of the Feminine Divine in several religions — Wicca, the Global Goddess Movement.
Her darkness is a sacred and transformative power in Hinduism. Black in Hinduism represents the pregnant void from which all phenomena are born.
Lam not really a contemporary photographer in the sense that I work with analog and not digitally like the vast majority of today’s photographers. Classic analog photography and black & white print are making a comeback, and so is authentic photography that is not augmented digitally by a computer.
Photography has traditionally been a field where women had the same opportunities as men. The top two earners in commercial photography are women. However, women photographers are increasingly and subtly recognized for a limited subject matter. Those who work in portraiture, landscape, relationships, identity, and family are exhibited and their images sell. Hardcore “male” subjects like politics and warfare are off limits for contemporary women photographers and rarely make it into lucrative art fairs or exhibitions.
In 1996 my husband and I went to Sumba to photograph locally famous Ikat weavers as The 3 Fates, It was the experience of a lifetime. We camped next to the villages in the rice paddies under a brilliant, starry sky. The villages had little to no electricity at the time, s0 the village elders came down from the mountains singing with torches to pick us up for the Marapu ceremony. We were dressed in original ceremonial clothes, set on holy stones amid a circle of monoliths. The great Marapu was asked first if our presence was beneficial. After the Marapu affirmed, we paid our respects and my Hasselblad camera,
the backdrop, and all of the other things I brought along for the photo shoot were blessed. The next morning the villages chose who posed. There was another Marapu ceremony for our departure.
IL always send framed photos back to the people who pose for me. I was happy to learn from a friend, who went to the same villages a few years later, that the villagers showed them proudly the images I had taken, displayed in their communal house.
The money I made selling images from this series paid for the education of two young women at Kupang University. Tam happy to report that one is a successful biologist and the other an obstetrics nurse.