5-Minute Bedtime Stories

Twelve fairy tales by Maria Gvardeitseva based on the real stories of her friends

For centuries, the breakup has been the prerogative of men. Today, about half of all marriages in Europe end in divorce and, significantly, 75 percent of divorce applications are filed by women. Perhaps that last statistic explains why women suffer more emotional hurt and find it harder than their ex-partners to build a new lifestyle and relationships. The cruel logic would be that if the woman marries for love and then decides it was a bad idea, the fault must be hers. So she suffers psychological and social consequences – self-blame, stigma, or both.

The project 5-Minute Bedtime Stories resists this logic in a fabulous way. London-based artist Maria Gvardeitseva, divorced after 20 years of marriage, four children, numerous countries, and shared challenges, takes a pronounced political and feminist approach to the story of her separation. This transforms grief, sorrow, and hatred in order to let them go. She offers artistic tools celebrating "divorce art" that help women to look at the situation with self-love, rediscover the socio-political aspects of marriage, and cope with this life trauma and the challenges of patriarchy. She does this in a surprising way – by reference to fairy tales.