I’ve just returned from the Snapshot Brighton awards at Add the Colour Cafe, and am flattered to have learned that the photo here, “Splash!”, was voted in as the 3rd place winner out of 500 entries, which meant some lovely prizes from sponsors Colourstream and One Digital. Congratulations also go to 2nd place winner Mike McLean, for his photo, “Not a Care in the World”, and to 1st place winner Denise Groves for her photo, “Breakdancers on the Bandstand.”
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Winner – European Women’s Lobby Award
28 Sep
I’m so pleased to announce that one of my images, entitled “Trapped,” is one of the winners of the European Women’s Lobby “My World: Visions of 21st-Century Feminism” Award.
“Trapped” is a self-portrait inspired by the photographic work of Cindy Sherman & Diane Arbus & by my readings of Judith Butler on the performance/performativity of gender. I’ve always admired Sherman’s work for its challenging of gender roles & Arbus’ work for challenging of beauty ideas & its engagement with the marginalized. Butler’s concept of gender as performance was a revelation to me, & I hoped, with this image, to investigate &/or illustrate that. I chose to wear a mask in the image because of the way that masks symbolize performance. If gender is both performed & performative, then gender roles can be the mask that we may have no choice but to wear. In addition, the more economic & professional gains that women have made, the more stringent the demands on our appearance seem to have become. With the increasing prevalence of eating disorders & depression among teenage girls (who are officially the most depressed demographic in the U.K.) & such a normalization of cosmetic surgery that scholars have called it a feminine moral & cultural imperative, the mask represents the only kind of face women are allowed to show the world – smooth, ageless, indistinguishable, bland.
