Anisia Affek is a multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin. Her practice concerns issues of cultural erasure and the survival of identity in oppressive environments. Working across textiles, photography, film, texts, and sound, Affek often draws on personal experience, as a Jewish, Ukrainian-born woman of Russian and Mongolian descent and the diasporic and patriarchal conditions these things imply.
During her stay in Schöppingen, Anisia Affek researched the women warriors of the Scythians nomadic tribe. In her multi-disciplinary work, she aims to question our understanding of national and self-identity. Based on archaeological records and bioarchaeological reports, her research shows that hunter-warrior horsewomen were a historical reality from the western Black Sea to northern China for more than 1000 years. She says: “In today’s world, our anatomy is our destiny—it not only determines our social structure but also argues that equality cannot be achieved while the difference between the sexes exists. By looking back into human history, and getting inspired by the women warriors of the Scythians nomadic tribe, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ suggests new ways of seeing the feminine.”