Engaged, Active, Aware
Organ Vida
English and Crostian
Softcover
72 Pages
145 x 235 mm
2018
ISBN 9789535868262
In the time of post-capitalist global turmoil, technological advancements, strengthening of the right-wing extremism, the growing influence of the religion that limits women rights again, and the semblance of democracy in the 21st century, we are facing a situation in which women must fight anew for the rights that had been won long ago.
In the midst of initiatives such as #MeToo, Free the Nipple, The Future is Female, and phenomena such as the female gaze, it is necessary to re-examine the current role of photography in representing and articulating women’s experiences and to critically rethink how digital culture is transforming feminist approaches to the image.
How and why do women protest and ignite change? Who are the heroines of our time? How are girls’ and women’s social roles and patterns of behaviour shaped? How do girls represent and self-represent on social media and how to think the new, so-called Instagram generation of artists? Psychoanalyst Joan Riviere in her essay Womanliness as a masquerade published in 1929 describes womanliness as a mask worn in the patriarchal society – a mask that actually forms an inherent part of the female identity. How is femininity as a mask reflected today? What is the role of our own bodies in a selfie-obsessed culture? Who are the viewers that we’re addressing?
In the last five years, the term the female gaze has become a ubiquitous buzzword in the art and fashion world. Many young artists have consciously adopted this term as a feature of their own approach, their activist and emancipatory engagement. The female gaze is juxtaposed with the dominant, patriarchal male gaze which objectifies the female body and defines the position of the woman as passive. Women artists purposefully take on an active role in order to articulate potential new perspectives on personal and direct female experiences that have, until now, remained invisible or been represented in a stereotypical manner. Can the female gaze be perceived as an intergenerational phenomenon? And has it been commodified and framed as merely a trend?
(source: https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/10640/embrace-the-female-gaze-with-organ-vida-in-zagreb)
About the Publisher
Organ Vida International Photography Organisation is a leading Croatian institution for promoting and researching contemporary photography practices in Croatia and on the international scene since its foundation in 2008.
organvida.com
(source: https://ovfestival.org/)
