“A man can wash away shame with a glass of water, but for a woman, all the seawater is not enough.”
Louwes work has been characterized by a strong focus on social topics and relations for groups that sit at the margins of the established “norms” of society. Her keen interest in the way people survive in exceptional circumstances and the impact this has on their body language is shown in several of her series of photographs.
In 2008 she installed a temporary photography studio in the women prison in Tirana, where she not only took portraits of the inmates but also reproduced the pictures they had of their mother, father or their lost child.
The video-installation Please Think Positive consists of five separate video-loops of imprisoned women who are turning around endlessly. Built on ethically problematic grounds – the women are placed on rotating platforms as objects to be looked at – Louwes highlights the act of objectification as inherent of the gaze. The viewer, forced to watch the rotating women, in a second moment is challenged to confront him/herself, caught in this act of watching.
