Soft power
Dionysian socialism
Soft power is artistic research I've been working on during my residency at the Akademie Schloss Solitude 2022-2023. It is based on the research of the legacy of FKK culture (Freikörperkultur) in former Yugoslavia. The origins of Yugoslav naturism go back to the interwar period, when the Adriatic coast attracted small groups of German and Austrian naturists in search of unspoiled nature and more secluded holiday spots. One of the pioneers was Munich-based naturist Rudolf Halbig who began visiting Koversada, a small island in the 1950s. These early nudists were primarily seeking an escape from radical conservatism in their own countries; the unspoiled nature for them was the place of escape. ​Although many nudist resorts on the Adriatic Coast persist, capitalist expansion presents new challenges. My artistic research into Yugoslavia’s naturist paradise and its modern-day capitalist challenges arises from noticing closures and repurposing of some Croatian beaches I'd previously visited.
As there are no politics that are not body politics, the history of development of this unique movement and its geographical spreading and transition are reflecting the political changes.
I was wondering what nudity meant in a broader sense? Because the thought of getting naked can cause a great sense of fear and vulnerability in us. I started to think of nudity as an act of exposing vulnerabilities, sexual identities, colonial histories, strangeness, silliness, etc. What does nudity mean in different situations? Prisoners being forced to undress. People who are violently tortured are often stripped first. People who are abused or raped are forced to undress. The patient is undressed for treatment. On the other hand, naturists undress to expose themselves to the sun and merge with the environment. Lovers take off their clothes consensually to develop intimacy.
Clothes-free tourism was one of the many things that made Yugoslav communism world’s paradise in the midst of the Cold War. The joy of the Adriatic coast and experience of freedom on islands is well described by Henri Lefebvre term “Dionisian socialism” that he came to while attending the meetings of the famous Praxis school at the island of Korcula. In Germany in particular, numerous clubs and groups emerged that were either politically left-wing and propagated equality for all in nudity, or politically right-wing groups that worshiped the ideal of the wild (naked) Germans and interpreted nudism in the sense of "public health". The first official nudist beach was established on Sylt in 1920. In the Nazi era the nudist movement was forbidden until 1941. After 1945, numerous nudist clubs were founded in West Germany. In the GDR skinny dipping was particularly widespread. Since 1989, the number of nudist beaches in both east and west has been declining.
During the pandemic, I visited friends on the Croatian coast, seeking FKK beaches for their wild nature and absence of tourist amenities. Becoming a naturist myself, influenced by Western partners and friends, rekindled childhood memories of German and French nudist tourists. Upon discovering some FKK beaches repurposed or minimized, I delved into research, encountering an article in The Calvert Journal (Jonathan Bousfield) that discussed these changes. Conversations with nudists on a remaining FKK beach in Murter, near Tisno, and a supportive gay couple from Pula, deepened my understanding of the 70s and 80s Yugoslav atmosphere and the importance of FKK legacy, especially for homosexuals. I began envisioning dances and exercises amid the rough FKK environments, exploring soft bodies meeting stones, rugged terrain, and sea life.
Remarkably, in the third decade of the 21st century, controversy still surrounds textile-free sun and nature exposure, with even physical attacks on unsuspecting nudist tourists, reflecting Croatia's shifting attitude towards such freedoms.
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Despite nurturing a cult of physical fitness, the Nazis saw the naturist movement as a decadent bohemian deviation, forcing FKK culture to go underground — or abroad. Clothes-free tourism was one of the many things that made Yugoslav communism world’s paradise in the midst of the Cold War. The joy of the Adriatic coast and experience of freedom on islands is well described by Henri Lefebvre term “Dionisian socialism” that he came to while attending the meetings of the famous Praxis school at the island of Korcula. Many nudist resorts on the Adriatic Coast survived to up to now — but the accelerating capitalist expansion has also brought new challenges. (Text: Jonathan Bousfield, The Calvert journal)
In the artistic research I start from historical and literature based sources, speaking on naturism in former Yugoslavia; I am looking in to archives of images, posters and postcards and memories of naturist practitioners and combine ideological, philosophical and other conditions that delineate and mutually differ the phenomena of tourist consumption of the nature and naturist forms of cohabitation and escape. I explore the map tracing how naturism was spreading around Europe, and how this map in contemporary time. I construct the visual language of the non-representable in naturist experience that in essence opposes the tourist and colonialist overproduction of images. The beginning of research is marked by recorded material on the Adriatic coast that I made in collaboration with several performers from Croatia, while sicking for the naturists beaches toward the coast, marked in the internet magazines and informations.
Brief history of the naturist movement
Naturism emerged in Europe and the USA around 1900 in connection with the life reform movement. She had set herself the goal of freeing the bodies of people in the cities in particular from constraints such as stiff clothing and corsets and keeping them healthy through healthy activities in the great outdoors.
In Germany in particular, numerous clubs and groups emerged that were either politically left-wing and propagated equality for all in nudity, or politically right-wing groups that worshiped the ideal of the wild (naked) Germans and interpreted nudism in the sense of "public health". FKK supporters mainly met on club premises - they were allowed to live out their culture on non-visible private premises. The first official nudist beach was established on Sylt in 1920.
In the Nazi era the nudist movement was forbidden until 1941. On the other hand, there were also völkische nudist representatives who propagated in particular naked physical training (most famous representative: Hans Surén). They found a niche in the sub-organizations of the NSDAP. From 1942 skinny dipping was allowed on designated beaches.
After 1945, numerous nudist clubs were founded in West Germany, which bathed naked on their own premises, played sports naked and went about their club life. There was no comparable club system in the GDR ; skinny dipping was particularly widespread here.
Since 1989, the number of nudist beaches in both east and west has been declining. Above all, however, naturist clubs seem to be outdated: in the 1970s150,000 members were still organized in West German naturist clubs, at the end of the 1990s there were only 60,000 in Germany as a whole. Today the number is around 45,000.[1]
It is often claimed here that naturism is primarily a GDR phenomenon, but this is very oblivious to history. On the one hand, the Nazis celebrated the naked body in art and sculpture (> Leni Riefenstahl), but on the other hand they were very prudish and hostile to eroticism, denigrating the sexual permissiveness of the 1920s, for example, as decadent and degenerate. Ultimately, this is above all deeply misogynistic and anti-emancipatory.
https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/chronologie/FKK-Kultur-in-der-DDR-Nackt-am-Strand,fkkddr115.html
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Advocates of naturist practice have long celebrated it as the authentic human-nature relationship, a way of re-kindling our connections with the natural world, and a means of achieving and maintaining physical, mental and spiritual health. Using Hans Surén’s book Man and Sunlight (1927) as an example, Morris, N.J. (2009) explored the importance of sensory perception to, and the embodied geographies of, naturism and the particular ways in which early twentieth century naturists conceptualised, valued and attached meaning to the relationship between the body and nature.
For Surén, the skin was a porous boundary between the internal and external forces of nature and only when an individual became attuned to both would they experience harmony in mind, body, and spirit.
Naturist practice reflected contemporary European-wide debates on urbanism, nationhood, health, and nature. There was always some connections between early naturist philosophy and contemporary phenomenological theory.
H.Surèn’s book Man and Sunlight is emblematic of the international cross-fertilisation of ideas which was occurring during this period, particularly between Germany and Britain (e.g. many early British naturists took up the pursuit after gaining personal experience of German Freikorperkultur or ‘free body culture’). Second, although it is important to acknowledge that Surén was not the first advocate of nudism in Germany and that several pioneering books, such as Heinrich Pudor’s Cult of the Nude and Richard Ungewitter’s Nakedness, had been published in the 1890s, Surén was one of the most popular promoters of German Nacktkultur (nudism) in the 1920s. The founder of a well-known gymnastic system, he published widely on the benefits of physical exercise and exposure of the naked body to air and sunlight for both men and women.
Morris, N.J. (2009) Naked in nature: naturism, nature and the senses in early 20th century Britain, Cultural Geographies 16(3), pp.283-308.
In his ‘Foreword’ to Man and Sunlight, for example, Saleeby (who had published on the benefits of sunlight in the New Statesman under the pseudonym ‘Lens’ as early as 1921) remarked that eighty per cent of the British population inhabited crowded cities, in which atmospheric pollution excluded about eighty per cent of the ultra-violet constituents of the sunlight.43 As far as he was concerned, civilisation had effectively ‘descended into darkness’. What is interesting about the discourse of both Simmel and Surén, however, and perhaps what distinguishes their ideas from those of Heidegger, is their belief in the redemptive properties of nature, that it was possible to escape the passive, desensitized, and ultimately degenerative existence endured by the ‘metropolitan body’. As sociologist Lewis notes, they believed that ‘there could be found aspects of life (or more precisely leisure) that could elude the grasp of modern consumer capitalism’. 44 Whilst Simmel found freedom and adventure in mountain climbing, Surén and his contemporaries found these qualities encapsulated in the sensory and embodied experience of naturism.
Morris, N.J. (2009) Naked in nature: naturism, nature and the senses in early 20th century Britain, Cultural Geographies 16(3), pp.283-308.
Soft Power - recordings of the performance at Kunstraum 34, Stuttgart 2023.
