Under Scrutiny explores the perpetual expectations and the unattainable pressure of perfectionism on young women, through an expanded photography installation. In a world that is intensely and exponentially changing, through exploitative advancements of artificial intelligence and image technologies and the rise of reactionary ideologies, it is more and more evident that we live in a system that was not built to accommodate us, but rather consume us, diminishing us from tangible connections.
My collaborative, conversational research is centred around interviewing young-adult women and listening to the insights of their lived experience. Through my work, I capture the multilayered experience of women, and I seek moments that are driven by emotion, open conversations, confessions, but also a stillness that allows for a space of reflection. To create a space of openness and fit the comfort of the photographed subject, I change the dynamic of the interview/ photoshoot, by keeping a persistent gaze or by breaking it, both my own and the camera’s. I create a quiet, private and pensive space, where these young women, shield and fidget, laugh and fill space, sigh or cry, while they answer questions that delve into the complex contemporary attitudes towards womanhood.
My expanded photography installation captures these susceptible moments, showcasing an intimate, contemplative yet confronting atmosphere. I create a ripple effect by inviting the audience to answer confronting, subverted questions to the participants, opening a dialogue on women’s lived experiences. Questions included in the questionnaire are:
How do you know you’re a woman? Are you caring?
Are you bitter?
Are you enough?
This body of work explores how women are seen, offering a space of resistance and contemplates on the shared connection between women, vulnerability, reflection and receptiveness, where emotion is never showcased as a sign of weakness, but courage and strength. This allows an opportunity to talk about how we are treated, and understood, opening a dialogue and seeking introspective moments on female subjectivity, from an audience of all gender expressions and identities, one that is open to look past the preconceived version of womanhood.
Under Scrutiny, behaves as a holistic experience of female identity, blurring the lines between the tender, blissful and tensive female perspectives.
VIDEOS:
https://youtu.be/l9uPFy_X0ug?si=cwmeSimaEOqSeoWn
