Laura Mahnke
*1991, lives and works in Hamburg, Germany
Laura Mahnke is a visual artist, writer, curator and ceramist. She is a founding member of Cake&Cash Collective. Her individual and collaborative work has been shown, among others, in Modos Dever (Leipzig), Kunsthaus Hamburg, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Frappant Galerie and MOM art space (Hamburg), MKG Hamburg, Dos Mares (Marseille). She participated in various symposia, publications and podcasts hosted by Candice Breitz & Mithu Sanyal, Künstlerhaus Lauenburg, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof and others.
Duo: Mahnke/Hoffmann Hoffmann/Mahnke (working title)
Collective: Cake& Cash
 
CV and portfolio on request: lauramahnke@riseup.net
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I am fascinated and deeply moved by emotions like rage, yearning and shame. I think a lot about working conditions, structural disadvantages, class and intersectional feminism. I create multidimensional works that include sculpture, print, sound, writing, reading, workshops, and more. My installations include spaces of encounter and alternative knowledge production/ sharing.

I am a woman with a non-academic background and I started studying fine arts in my late twenties being a mother of one. Everything I did before entering the academic art world shapes and enriches my curatorial and artistic practice: Motherhood, feminism, grass roots self-organization, punk, community building, crafts, improvisation and low-budget decadence.

Most recently, I reconnected with the material I am most familiar with but that I avoided for a long time: clay. I am currently working on an artistic practice that is clay-based and intuitive. I want to rediscover modes of repetition and production from a material that enables me to work by heart.

Metaphorical materials as well as the way and the conditions under which a work is produced carry another layer of my work. Poetry or prose, either self-written or consumed through music and literature, often act as the cornerstones of my work.

Statement on image quality: the varying and sometimes poor quality of the documentation of my works is intended. I am critical of the high-res standard in art documentations just as I am not interested in producing polished artworks. I like dirt.