Laura Mahnke

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 at or published by Künstlerhaus Lauenburg, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof and others.

Duo: Mahnke/Hoffmann
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, intersectional feminism and the limits of theory. I create multidimensional works that can include sculpture, photography, text, sound, reading, and workshops.

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 artistic practice: Motherhood, feminism, punk, community building and low-budget decadence.

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 or become works themselves.

Image quality: as I am not interested in producing polished artworks, I also do not fetishize my documentation. I like dirt.