Welcome to the Show

The tiniest of intros as to how I ended up here.

Lovely to make your virtual acquaintance!

I'm Victoria Gugenheim. I've been a human rights activist for over 10 years, frequently working with The Council of Ex Muslims of Britain and One Law for All as their Resident Artist, and was also the Resident Artist for The World Humanist Congress this year, getting lesbians centre stage. My work primarily features bodypaint, but extends to poetry, song, music, dance, writing, debates, protests, panels, internet and social media campaigns, graphic design, photography, digital art and sculpture, and much more. Not busy, then.

Before I was cancelled, I was a world award winning Bodypainter and world ranking makeup artist. I was even the world's first science based one, performing in front of a 40,000 strong crowd at The World Bodypainting Festival. I taught in 4 languages, was a judge and featured painter at international competitions, and worked on major movies, including Guardians of the Galaxy, Maleficent, Pride, Cruella de Vil, and James Bond, where more often than not I taught makeup, got into (choreographed) fights, and did my own stunts. Not always in that order. At one point, I was called The White Grace Jones on set, ran away from live gunfire, and did stuff that was deemed too raunchy for the new, more politically correct James Bond…

I'll need to tell you that one over a few drinks.

I also walked at London Fashion Week as David Bowie.

I also thought I was a man, oscillating between desperately wanting to be one, taking protohormones, packing, binding, and then identifying as nonbinary transmasc before I realised, that I'm just a raging dyke.

Work dried up a bit when I detransitioned/desisted after a plethora of domestic violence, death threats and abuse, started telling people what a woman is, and that there was a bunch of abusive, predatory men fucking stuff up for women, who were also well...dressed like them.

Not a popular opinion in the arts, luvvie.

So this is where I am now. What I care deeply about, is using art, freedom of thought, conscience and expression as liberatory tools for women and girls, and using art and especially the art of creative protest, as a way to keep their struggles in the public eye. I examine art, why we do it, examine feminist thought, sprinkle in science and research, lift up survivor's stories, respond to stuff I find interesting, and wake up every day with a fire in my heart for what I'm doing.

Currently, one of my latest projects called Painted Powerful: My Body is Mine, involves bodypainting female rape survivors as a means of giving them back bodily autonomy; it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done, on par with working with breast cancer survivors, which was also one of my passions. I've a massive bunch of projects, and I'm also planning a feminist art conference next year. I'm also now directing and producing documentaries, and have a podcast up and coming. I've even been a part of Sarah Vaci's 100 portraits of detransitioned women.

So, despite being cancelled and going through what can only be described as Dante's 7th Circle of hell, things are oddly, really quite beautiful.

This substack, is where I go from here.

Welcome.