| Diana’s Daughters – female hunters then and now
11. February - 06. May 2012
'What the hell, the bitch shot the fox!' A spontaneous outburst
from a male hunter at a consortium hunt not too many years ago. The
amazement that women can actually hit something is still alive and
kicking. And maybe it's not so surprising. Because even though the
goddess of hunt, Diana, and the wild untamed nature, Mother Earth,
are female, hunt has always traditionally been an exclusively male
universe. A universe, however, where they began feeling threatened
even 100 years ago, when the upper-class women started gripping the
guns: '…her mere presence as a shooter destroys the mood, for on a
battue the speech should be free…' wrote Boganis, whose daughter,
Karen Blixen, ironically enough became one of the most famous
female hunters of her time.
Today app. 8 % of people taking out a hunting license is women.
Women want to get out into nature, not just to be there but to be
part of it. Listen, sense, be alert and react quicker than even the
most vigilant animal.
Who are the female hunters of today, how was their interest in
hunting awakened and how do they practice their interest in
hunting? The Women's Museum and the Danish Museum of Hunting and
Forestry set out to examine this in a major joint research project.
800 female hunters participated in the survey where they - apart
from factual questions - answered a number of questions about norms
and attitude. Questions that may help uncover which myths and
prejudices are real and which only exist as handed down
'truths'.
Now the museums have produced an exhibition that tells much more
about the modern female hunters and puts them and their hunting
into a historical perspective by also looking at famous female
hunters from Danish history, among them Queen Sophie Amalie and
Karen Blixen.
The artists group Grethe Aagaard, Tanja Nellemann and Lise Schou
has been in charge of designing and building the exhibition. In the
hands of the artists the dry facts from the museums' survey comes
alive, crawling up walls and down doors and sneaking into the mind
of the viewer. This makes Diana's Daughters an unusual
cultural-historical exhibition, where old and new art work together
with the museum artefacts; twisting the universes and explaining
the connections in an entirely new way.
The 15th June Foundation has supplied the grant that made it
possible for the museums to carry out the research project, while
the Danish Agency of Culture and the Danish Hunting Association
have supported the survey, the research is based on.
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