Girlhood at New Fears Gallery

 

There are a few brief years in the life cycle of certain humans where the body has not yet given

us away. When you are a child, you understand only that you will grow up but when you enter

the years of girlhood the possibility is imminent, it’s desired, it’s feared and there is not much to

do but wait, prepare and practice for becoming.

Girlhood is a space that both shapes and is shaped by those who inhabit it. This exhibition is a

journey into that world, an exploration of the intimate, often hidden spaces where girls become

themselves, where the seeds of identity are sown in the fertile ground of mutual experiences

and studied performance.

Inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s excavation of the feminine journey in The Second Sex, this

exhibition delves into “The Girl”

—a stage of transformation, shrouded in secrecy and charged

with the power of potential. It is a world of diaries, dreams, and whispered plans, a cocoon that

nurtures the self before it is thrust into the roles of Lover, Mother, Friend, Boss, Consumer and

Consumed.

This is a space of rest and renewal, of quiet rebellion and social spectacle. It is a space where

the private meets the public, where the personal becomes communal. It could not exist withoutthe girls who create it, for it is in this seclusion that they come into themselves. Welcome to this

world—girlhood is care, girlhood is hurt, girlhood is secrets, and above all, girlhood is shared.

Curated by Halle Frost, Zum Hank and Caroline Ballegaard