Zie de mens

Het queer potentieel van homo-Jezus in Elisabeth Ohlson Wallins Ecce Homo

Auteurs

  • Mariecke van den Berg Atria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54195/RS.12214

Samenvatting

This article analyzes the photo-exhibition Ecce Homo (1998) by Swedish artist Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin. In Ecce Homo, which depicts twelve moments from the life of Jesus Christ, traditional church art is mixed with the themes and symbols of contemporary LGBT-culture. In the article it is investigated, through a queer focus, whether Ecce Homo has the potential to destabilize the rather strict oppositional pairing of religion and homosexuality in contemporary debates in post-secular societies like Sweden. Based on a discussion of three works (The Annunciation, Palm Sunday and Calvary) it is argued that Ecce Homo connects traditional Christian motives such as the love for one’s neighbor, (self)sacrifice and charity to queer concepts such as the instability of gender and sexuality and the destabilizing potential of ‘darkness’ as an aesthetic theme. As queer and Christian concepts inform each other they are given meaning in relation to each other, thus indeed (for the most part) suggesting that queer and Christian themes are relevant to one another and sometimes overlap.

Biografie auteur

  • Mariecke van den Berg, Atria

    Mariecke van den Berg werkt als wetenschappelijk onderzoeker bij Atria, Kennis­centrum voor Emancipatie en Vrouwengeschiedenis, waar zij onderzoek doet naar de beeldvorming van transgender personen in de media. Daarnaast is zij secretaris van de Nederlandse Onderzoekschool voor Theologie en Religiewetenschap (NOSTER). Tot juni 2016 was zij werkzaam als postdoctoraal onderzoeker binnen het NWO­ project ‘Contested Privates’.

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Gepubliceerd

01-09-2016

Citeerhulp

Zie de mens: Het queer potentieel van homo-Jezus in Elisabeth Ohlson Wallins Ecce Homo. (2016). Religie & Samenleving, 11(2), 249-270. https://doi.org/10.54195/RS.12214