Doris Stauffer’s Hexenkurs [Witches Course]

Abstract:

Doris Stauffer (born 1934) was a key figure in the Swiss women‘s liberation movement and a pioneer of experimental art education in Switzerland. Her teaching practise began at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich (KGSZ) (School of Applied Art Zurich) in 1969 and focused on self-analysis as a technique for art students to confront themselves and their environment towards political action. Her radical approach led to a demand for her resignation and ultimately to the foundation of the private F+F Schule für experimentelle Gestaltung Zürich (School for Experimental Design Zurich) where she continued to teach. Her first Hexenkurs (Witches Course) for women was introduced in 1977, the goal of which was to liberate from filth and let live again. The consciousness, knowledge, and feminine wisdom, which had previously been intrinsic to women. After a dispute with the director over the exclusion of men, she continued the course privately until 1980. In the course, participants mocked gender stereotypes and invented alternative forms of expressing identity with activities that included personal background, photographing favourite body parts, photographing disliked body parts, fictive biography, I can, body painting and role-playing. Advertising images were used as the basis of many of the exercises.

Through preparation of a monograph published in 2015, we maintain that Doris’s work was accomplished with a mix of humour and creativity. In fact the imagery generated in the Hexenkurs shows that she is still a source of inspiration today. In her own words, the images trigger the spunk to somehow express oneself, beyond stereotypes. At the same time, the photographs demonstrate how the classical role of women, and its limited field of power to which women have been restricted for a very long time, can be taken to the extreme ad absurdum with great relish, begging the question that without a little bit of witchcraft, is this even possible?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article is based on research by Koller and Züst (2015). Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this article stems from personal discussions with Doris Stauffer that were conducted in Zurich from June 2013 to February 2015 as well as in April 2016.

Notes

1 Translators Note: Here Stauffer also reverses the usual gender declension of the definitive article in German of the moon (officially masculine) and the sun (officially feminine).