Frauenberg Leibnitz

Marina Stiegler honors the headless mother goddesses

Marina Stiegler with the heads of the goddesses

(Bild: UMJ/J. J. Kucek)

In her current project "wERDEN-Frauenberg" for the Institute for Art in Public Space, artist Marina Stiegler explores headless statuettes in the Frauenberg Temple Museum in Leibnitz.

During archaeological excavations, a series of ancient votive statuettes depicting nursing mother goddesses were found on the Frauenberg in Leibnitz. In the course of Christianization, their faces were removed or their heads were cut off completely (this is said to still occur in isolated cases today).

The headless mother goddesses of the Frauenberg

(Bild: Marina Stiegler)

The Salzburg artist Marina Stiegler, who lives in Graz, has in any case dealt with this headlessness and in recent weeks, together with the Institute for Art in Public Space, has realized the project "wERDEN- Frauenberg", which was presented on Thursday. A circle of clay heads, which form a connection with the earth through the natural growth of added plant seeds, are intended to illustrate the feminine principle. Clay is considered to be one of the most primal materials in human history. Over time, it too will lose its form and make room for something new. So the becoming and passing away here is to be understood as a tribute to the goddesses.

Stiegler's goddesses also at the Graz Art Center 
Marina Stiegler has long been fascinated by the early goddesses. From Monday, her revival of the archaic "Bird Goddess of Graz" can once again be experienced at the Graz Art Center. Using clay and plant seeds, visitors can recreate the small statue from the 4th millennium BC, which was found during excavations in the Peacock Garden in 2003, and then plant it in a place of their choice.