UNCENSORED
The 'art scandal' in Regensburg - bambule.babys' fight against censorship

Since March 2018 bambule.babys has been confronted with massive criticism and further restrictions in its Bavarian hometown Regensburg. Especially one image of the performance 'My home is not my home', when a female character moves a plastique Madonna figure between her legs, has obviously deeply disturbed the local authorities.

The performance 'My home is not my home' is a radical exploration of cultural ideologies making use of myths, bodies and symbolic acts from a feminist's point of view. The premiere of the performance was supposed to take place at the Bavarian-Bohemian Treffpunkt Festival in March 2018.

The Regensburg Department of Culture first tried to censor the performance by threatening a breach of contract penalty and then immediately completely cancelled it. After that the diocese Regensburg cancelled a commissioned work of Anna Valeska Pohl, the artistic director of bambule.babys. Anna Valeska Pohl was heavily attacked in the local press and beyond. Without the performance being reviewed, Pohl's work is said to be 'pornographic' and 'blasphemous'.
As a result portions of the public see Anna Valeska Pohl as a 'highly controversial' and 'scandal producing' artist. Now she has become a persona non grata in her community.

Meanwhile the performance 'My home is not my home' was presented at Performance Crossings, International Festival for Performace Art in Prague, CZ and as a site-specific performance in five different underground bars in Regensburg.

For more infos on the performance itself & the artistic work:
https://www.bambule-babys.de/myhome
Open letter of bambule.babys on the scandal (in German language, PDF-document):
As an example two of the images of 'My home is not my home' the Regensburg Department of Culture wanted to censor: 

Performance Crossings Prague

Photo by Istvan Kovacs
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