"In my very early childhood, I was sexually abused in my family, which has influenced my entire existence as a woman and a human being. I want to create a dialog with my work. I speak freely about everything because I am not alone. I don't want to and can't save or change the world, but my aim is in addition to my very personal processing of my traumas, to provoke with my art, to offend and thus show that children and women should not be used. A lot happens when we start talking about our fears and needs. The fears are suddenly no longer so great. We have to communicate, listen and help each other. Women and men can only find each other through dialog."

Irina von Bonin focuses on the historically determined interaction between men and women and operates outside of linear thought structures. The great chemistry that is created when trauma is transformed into art only became an integral part of her life relatively late, but the high level of life experience has brought her artistic work to blazing life, making it polarizing.

"As an artist, you kind of live out your private life in your profession. You bring your innermost self to the outside world. You share your deepest secrets and fears, your joys and pain and fantasies, with the public. That takes a lot of courage and should be respected. But you don't have to like it."

"I was still very small, about three years old the first time I was sexually abused. Therefore, this life-changing event from my past was buried deep in my soul. I had no idea what was going on with me, I was just different somehow. I had a lot of fears, such as nightmares until I was well into adulthood, which tore me from my sleep, and hallucinations during the day in which I tormented small children. They were particularly bad because, on the one hand, I couldn't explain where they came from and, on the other, I was so ashamed of them that I could never confide in anyone. I suffered from cold sweats that soaked my clothes every day, claustrophobia, recurring fears of death and much more. But when one carries all these things with them every day, they become a destructive normality.

Even my sexuality was, and to some extent still is, disturbed. No orgasms because there was no desire. But instead bloodlust, a need to provoke with sexuality and many other unnatural sexual needs. But if you don't know that you're different because you're ashamed to talk about it, you just accept it all. I never talked to my girlfriends about my sexuality. I never talked to a man about my sexuality. I was ashamed to ask questions, I was ashamed to have needs. Did I even have needs? I didn't even know that.

I process all of this in my pictures and sometimes in performance art. With my projects I want to create a dialog. It is important to me to speak freely about everything because I am not alone. We can assume that every voluntary prostitute has a similar past to mine. I want to stimulate reflection and shake people awake. Because many women feel like me. Many don't know that they have such a stain in their past, or don't dare to talk about it, or they simply accept their fate. But we don't have to. When we talk about it, we free ourselves. We free ourselves from the pain, the torture and the repetition. I have been raped many more times in my life. And why? Because I didn't know any better. Because I lived under the illusion that this was my destiny. The illusion that sexuality is brutal. The illusion that men could use me. When I realized that I was living in an illusion, I could change everything.

We can change everything by building bridges and talking about our fears. Men same as women, women same as men."

Yours Irina von Bonin

Viva la Vulva