l'espoir protège :)

I wanted to create a kind of cliché picture of a woman, who has reduced herself by her outer appearance to a toylike figure. The woman in this picture seems de-humanized. She seems to be all plastic, like a doll.
Yet she is a human being, dressed in a way that it hurts the eye of an emancipated female viewer.
A typical cliché male fantasy coming true. Is it really like that?
Does the average man really have such fantasies? It seems so, when I look around. It gives me the creeps as a viewer, when I see those kind of women in a mans magazine or anywhere else in the media - and sad enough, even on the streets, in nightlife I have seen these figures, these bad copies of a "real woman".
Maybe it is the wish to fit in, to become equal. Being part of a uniform crowd of people must feel powerful.
Maybe it takes more courage to be individual and to show it.
But maybe these women are very smart and know exactly what they are doing. And are perfectly happy with the image they create.
I do my best not to judge, but I can't help my feelings of misunderstanding.
I honestly dont know, if I feel sympathy or disgust. And I don't know, if I have always resisted to be like that.

I chose an old butcher's working space, where once over-bred animals have been killed to feed us. Even for people who eat meat, this is not the kind of place they'd call cosy, nice and warm, I'm sure.
It's a room, where lives have ended, cold and creepy.
I tried to make a photo, that at the first glance seems to be just one of many commercial photos, that we are used to see. A photo, working with the easy-to-follow rule of "sex sells".
A woman dressed in a cheap sexy way, selling a product, that promises the female buyer the entrance to the club of the "Hot and Sexy Women" or that promises the male consumer to become attractive to the "Hot and Sexy Women" on this planet.
But there is no product to be sold with this picture, is it?
The woman is not interacting with the viewer. Neither is she interacting with someone (obvious) or something. Is it the woman, who is selling herself? Or is she already "bought" by someone? Is it her free will to be there? Is she in danger? Who or what is behind the door that only she can see - her murderer, her saviour, her victim?

Its not obvious, if the woman is the victim and if the observer is supposed to sympathize with her. She is smiling wide. She is
unscathed. She doesn't seem scared - does she?

sketch and result

The statue of Justitia or "Lady Justice" is quite well known in the context of law and order.

With her sword in one hand, the unbalanced scale in the other and (at least depicted till the 15th century) her blindfolded eyes, she symbolizes objective, thus blind justice and condemnation.

In my interviews I found one strong parallel in almost every life story these women had to tell:

Many of them suffered from eating disorders or still do.

The scale determines their lives, each day waking up, measuring the body weight, the mood of the day is determined by the what the scales read.

Its not fair, but who is to blame? Oneself? Media? Childhood? It doesnt matter.

Its a crime to the body that is committed every day by the mind and at same time it's condemnation to the body - without justice.

The position of the woman in this picture is a strong one, just like the statue, the viewer looks up to her. But its not her judging someone else. She is judge, victim and executioner to herself. And she is never objective.

For me, in this context the blindfolded eyes could symbolize the wish to be finally blind to what the scale shows, as well as it could symbolize that she is blind to what is more important - her health and her inner person. The kitchen knife is easily redirected to her own body, to cut away what is too much. The scale is friend and enemy at the same time.

My first thoughts were to take a photo in front of the court building. But I realised, that an eating disorder is not a crime one can run to court with, its not judgeable or expiated by any other person but oneself. This crime is committed inside your own four walls - the place you live or, metaphorically seen, your head.
Thats why I chose to create a kindof exaggerated, thus restless and uneasy livingroom atmosphere. The wallpaper is kind of irritating, its not a room to rest in.
In the photo I didnt want the woman to be naked. I also wanted to have a reference to the dress of the original statue. I could have chosen a very light cloth for example to make a toga from it, but I wanted to put the (almost naked) body in the center of the picture, because it just is all about the body.

I chose a bikini, because on a hot summers day in the eyes of an onlooker you are perfectly dressed. Underwear, which is by form and weight similar to a bikini and in which you weigh yourself in the morning, stays what it is every time of the year and it would always mean a state of being naked, if you only wore underwear.

Description

In my endexams project I want to portrait women by putting them in created scenarios, that represent important situations in their lives. I want to work with photography and video as medium.

After I had a talk with one of my docents about my idea (writing personal text and lyrics, chosen by the women, on their body and taking a photo in a certain posture, that should symbolize their attitude towards life - some results are below this text)
I thought back to the basic idea behind this project: portraying women. I decided to start working on a second project as well. On the surface, those new photos should offer an easier way to access their story, the should seem more personal although they are not.

For the original project (below, the photos are not optimized yet, still stains on the ground etc) I already interviewed 14 women - women that I barely knew, women that I call my friends and women that I havent ever seen before and first got to know during the interview.
We kind of interpreted their lives stories with lyrics of songs, parts of books, poems, they can relate to, text they wrote in early diaries. These texts I wrote on their bodies and took photos of a certain pose, that should symbolize their attitude towards life at the moment.
Usually you dont get clear information when first meeting a person, about his or her life, the experiences they made. The thought behind this project was, to make the lifestory visible on the bodies. As if Life really leaves its marks. In German it would be "vom Leben gezeichnet" so why not using "Zeichen" to mark their bodies.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, I found a lot of significant parallels during the interviews and thats why I want to create some sort of allegoric scenarios in the second series, that based on a personal background, still implement a certain universal or general validity.
The selfpicture of women is often very much influenced by the media that surrounds us as well as the way we see and perceive other people. In the photography part of this project, I therefore want to use a kind of "commercial", illustrating style.