For my photo book/final project I want to focus on the transitional space between girlhood and womanhood by exploring but also intersecting traditionally contrasting themes such as innocence and sexuality. The project will employ my own feminist perspective on sexualization of young girls through worryingly youthful beauty trends amongst women. The book in a way will pull from and challenge themes of the lolita (for example, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita and the (far more troubling) film adaption and various book covers.. while using a rather “coquette” aesthetic in the books execution - that being hyper-feminine. I think this said space itself between girlhood and womanhood can be extremely uncomfortable and unsure, but is something that obviously a number of go through (not exclusive of course to cis-gender individuals).
The book itself will be more of a collage work of sorts, with lots of inclusions other than traditional print styles, such as photograms, scans of writing, and maybe even painting/drawing. In short, there will be a contrast between the innocence of girlhood and self-empowerment in one’s sexuality as a woman. I think that this contrast may be difficult to pull off correctly (that is without leaning into something that unintentionally may come off as exploitative), but I think it will be a really interesting challenge and is something I am very interesting in exploring. The girl and the grown woman coexist inside of many of us.
Photographers that I will be referencing:
Karin Mack
- The feminist avant-garde of the 1970s
-Austrian post-war artist
-First explored woman’s role as housewife, then moved to work more centered around her own feelings as a woman.
