My work is intended to be a continuing study of theoretical and practical relationships between young womxn in the feminist film theory The Male Gaze.
The Male Gaze is the act of depicting womxn and the visual arts and literature from a masculine, heterosexual and hypersexualized perspective that presents and represents womxn as sexual objects from which the male viewer can derive pleasure.
The consumption of womxn through the Male Gaze has led to several photographers such as Petra Collins, Diane Arbus and Carrie May Weems, to challenge the notion that in order to be photographically documented, women must be conduits for cis-gender men’s desires and to hold themselves accountable to quench the thirst for fetishization of themselves.
Through reading Mary Beards Women in Power, Alongside Judith Butlers, Gender Trouble,I realized a communicational moment was necessary between myself and my models, for me to style them but to keep at arm’s length when actually staging the body for the photos, I want my models to have a certain level of autonomy. I would like to attempt to dismantle the visual language that disarms women. In reference to our consumption I have taken several photo- series. Utilizing everyday surroundings, I want to create a hyper dreamlike scape of the female gaze and the world surrounding it. The questioning of our default spectator is vital, skin being unedited and, in some cases, even sharpening imperfections.
The Sexual Politics of The Male Gaze are greatly intertwined with the sexual politics of the technical world and the territorial hold that men are allowed to occupy without question.
This is why I have chosen to shoot on a camera or tattoo, as opposed to drawing or painting.
Inspired by Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema which adopts the language of psycho-analysis, I attempt to create. Mulvey argued traditional Hollywood responds only to masculine voyeurism. I would like to utilize similar visual language, but responding to feminine voyeurism and a sub-genre of Gaze that isn’t responded to enough:
The Female Gaze