Bettina WitteVeen Launches The American Women's Party and Flowers of Solidarity at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine

Artist and activist Bettina WitteVeen will launch Flowers of Solidarity and The American Women's Party on February 17, 2017 from 5:30-8 pm at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The event, a salon, will coincide with a discussion about her art installation 5 Wounds as part of The Christa Project: Manifesting Divine Bodies, on view until March 12.

Since we are now living in an unprecedented time in America and dignity is under severe assault, WitteVeen has decided to counter-act this negative impulse with positive and up-lifting action: The American Women's Party is an organization that will bring together other political parties and advocacy groups with the explicit mandate to empower women, to safe guard democratic institutions, and to guarantee the sacrosanctity of all sentient life.

Flowers of Solidarity is a non-profit organization that has participated in the Women's March on Washington and will be in Washington for The Earth Day March (April 21, 2017). In May, Flowers of Solidarity will begin planting sunflowers as symbols of solidarity and action in front of institutions that serve people who are being targeted by the current administration. This art-action will foster an exchange between different ethical, religious, political groups and establish community outreach.

WitteVeen is inspired by the lives of five women activists who were martyred for their convictions and to whom she pays tribute in the installation 5 Wounds, which debuted at St. John the Divine and will travel to Europe. Sophie Scholl, Viola Liuzzo, Anna Mae Aquash, Rosa Luxemburg, and Petra Kelly fought against fundamental attacks on the rights of others with action and the power of the word. They were deeply empathetic and had a low tolerance for injustice.

To quote the German resistance fighter, Sophie Scholl, "Il faut un esprit dur et un coeur tendre." To which WitteVeen adds,

"Indeed it takes a strong uncompromising will and a tender heart to march with the oppressed, to seek to empower the disenfranchised, to stand up for freedom of thought, to advocate for the rights of nature, to face down militarism and the employment of nuclear arms, and above all, to resist the slow eroding effect of complacency and authoritarianism on one's humanity, spirit and soul."

Sophie Scholl, Viola Liuzzo, Anna Mae Aquash, Rosa Luxemburg, and Petra Kelly were not only being attacked for their convictions, but for being women. WitteVeen's installation has a new resonance after the election. She says, "As a woman I have been deeply disturbed by the American election and it has become clear to me that we women (and the men who support us) need to unite to be achieve lasting change and to heal the 5 Wounds of our society: authoritarianism, racism, greed, militarism and nuclear weapons."

At the talk, WitteVeen will address questions she asks in her work as an artist, which centers its humanitarian concern on the dignity of humans, animals, and the environment:

• How to lead an ethical life in an unethical world
• How to guard one's soul from the erosions of injustice
• How to protect the heart amidst cynicism
• How to stay awake around the somnambulant

About Bettina WitteVeen

Bettina WitteVeen is a photographer and conceptual artist. She graduated from Wellesley College with a Bachelors Degree in American Studies/History. In her work, WitteVeen explores a wide range of subjects from mythology in Sacred Sister to the impact of historical events on the individual in the collectively titled The Heart of Darkness, a worldwide installation project and photographic poem of epic scale. In a series of exhibitions at historically significant locations, WitteVeen traces collective trauma and other contributing factors to human destructiveness as it finds its expression in war and genocide. The Heart of Darkness premiered in 2005 with Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori as part of L'Eté de photographique de Lectoure in France. WitteVeen's next installation was Brüder, Zur Sonne, Zur Freiheit and the beat goes on at the Goethe Institute in New York in 2006. Death and the Maiden, part of The Heart of Darkness project, is comprised of over a hundred photographs and was exhibited in a vast subterranean space in Berlin in 2008 to great acclaim.

Bettina WitteVeen's photographs are in several private and corporate institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art. www.bettinawitteveen.com

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Sturges