Street Harassment and Slut Walks

The F Word, a blog 'dedicated to talking about and sharing ideas on contemporary UK feminism', last week posted an article regarding women's views on 'lads mags'. Describing our society as a patriarchy and 'culture that persistently objectifies women', I was keen to think about the manner in which women are presented as sexual objects and the effect this has upon both ourselves and society as a whole. Everyday harassment is a concern addressed by BBC Radio 4's 'My Name Is Not 'Hey Baby'', a programme which discussed such issues surrounding street harassment and where men and women draw the line 'between a flirtatious comment and unwanted attention', while online communities such Hollaback! London offer a space for victims to tell their stories, and, I feel most importantly, bring light to events that occur daily and yet are often overlooked.

I myself was present at the Newcastle Slut Walk in 2011, not as a protester but the document the event - the walk, and others around the world were organised in reaction to comment from a policeman in Toronto, stating "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised." Both women and men took to the streets dressed as "sluts" to argue that women have to right to dress as they choose and not feel they are to be blamed for sexual harassment, assault and rape. Visiting the  Gillian Wearing at the Whitechapel Gallery, works such as her iconic series 'Signs that say what you want them to say, and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say' bought to mind the signs of the Slut Walkers, and of Suffragettes before them. Wearing's work forces us to consider how we present ourselves to the world, whilst also often presenting a chance to take on a different role through works such as 'Confess All On Video. Don’t Worry, You Will Be In Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian… (1994)', in which the use of a mask allowed speakers to voice secrets in anonymity. piece '10-16' in which adults lip synch the voices of 7 adolescents who discuss their lives and concerns. A separation between voice and representation is something I am keen to explore in my own work, the beginnings of which can be seen in the experimental work below. Here, developing from previous ideas of desires, security, comfort and childhood, I manipulated appropriated children's toys to incorporate text from the signs of the Slut Walkers. Toys functional as transitional objects in childhood development, and, as Winnicott proposes, takes the place of the mother; the realisation that the mother is separate from the child causes a sense of loss, and such toys allow the child to "create" what it desires. The lack of phallic signifier eradicates a sense of a gendered speaker, and thus the direct address of their messages are interchangeable. Similar to my earlier patchwork quilt, I hoped that the combination of objects traditionally associated with comfort and confrontational, and even sexually suggestive, text would present an uncomfortable viewing position, and blur the line between speaker and representation.

I felt that perhaps these text pieces were too literal; use of slogans from a specific event gave them a very fixed context, and it was commented that they seem almost like advertising, in which the audience is hit with the message and "get it", without them, or the work having to do more. While the idea of phallocentrism, particularly in relation to childhood, is something I want to develop in my work, I have to question whether such blunt text is the most accurate way to explore such thoughts - these pieces, after all, present a view which the majority of my audience will already hold, and I hope to create works which challenge and question rather than reaffirm. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

After a discussion upon my former text pieces, I started to realise the emphasis in my work upon desire, and of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a pyramid of human desires, right, beginning with the Physiological, and concluding in Self-Actualization. Reconsidering the use of bedding as an instigator for feelings of security, and the play upon words presented by Othello's Iago, in the idea of a woman only working when she goes to bed, I began to examine the image of the dormant, sleeping woman apparent throughout Orientalist paintings, and this juxtaposition between the bed as a place of security, and a place in which the woman becomes a spectacle and victim of the male gaze. We are forced through such works as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 'Le Grande Odalisque' to identify with the male as controlling the narrative, and watching such an "unconscious other". This notion of the female "performing the spectacle" links to the performativity of language, which, as Lacan suggests, constitutes desire, predicated upon absence or lack. With these ideas in mind, I created the piece below, appropriating a line from The Smiths' 'Well I Wonder', a song discussing the painful longing of unrequited love - after a tutorial in which we considered the ability of music to identity with both and male and female audience regardless of a gendered speaker, I felt that a lyric written by Morrissey, a man who has never publicly stated his sexuality and claims 'I was never a sexual person' would be particularly relevant. The contradiction between the comforting bedding with the almost sinister questioning of the speaker plays upon the desire for safety, shelter and stability, and the manner in which sexual desire can disrupt this. We are not sure whether it is the sleeper or the viewing questioning, and this uncertainty and unclarity of desire further destable or viewing position and create a disturbing sense of ambiguity.

Why Women Have Sex

'You Could Be My' (2012) spray paint on appropriated textiles

Upon re-reading Anne Koedt's 'The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm', and Jane Gerhard's revisiting of it, I began to consider the sexual presentation of women in relation to male desire. Koedt claims in her essay that men perpetuate the myth of a vaginal as opposed to clitoral orgasm as it satisfies a model of male desire, with the vagina the best physical stimulant for male penetration. She continues to discuss ideas of 'The Invisible Woman' and 'The Penis as Epitome of Masculinity', and the phallocentric nature of desire and its impact upon social function; 'sexually, a woman was not seen as an individual wanting to share equally in the sexual act, any more than she was seen as a person with independent desires when she did anything else in society'. As the embodied "other", the women can "be" the phallus to the extent that she is the object of male desire, and as such can enter into the symbolic order. Considering these prevalent themes throughout my practice, I complated the notion of creating a series of works in which language suggested an ungendered speaker, and as such an uneasy spectator position. While the work above shows a continuation into my re-contextualisation of female personal adverts, I felt that the pieces below, appropriating anecdotal text from Cindy Meston and David Buss' psychological study 'Why Women Have Sex' explored a far more varied approach to female sexuality, whilst still remaining ambiguous in its authors sex and sexuality.

'The Thing Called Love' (2012) felt on glass

'What Turns Women On' (2012) felt on paper, and block print experimentations below

'The Thrill of Conquest' (2012) appropriated textiles on paper, thread and appropriated beads

Here, we are unsure as to who the speaker is directing their words to, or if in fact this is how we are intended to think of the author, however I felt the feminine visuals, particularly use of traditionally "female" media such as pink fabric and beads, on their own suggested a strong sense of female voice, and perhaps it is through connecting these to other contrasting elements that this blur of layered identities and lack of pictorial representation that I wish to develop to explore female sexuality and sexual identity will become far more grabbing. As presented by Lacan, the sexed individual is constituted by a world of language, and in regards of sexuality 'there is no insistent sexual desire which pre-exists the entry into the structures of language and culture'. I believe that these initial explorations into sexuality and desire open new areas of thought concerning previously considered ideas surrounding Freudian and Lacanian positions upon desire and feelings of absence or lack - as Naomi Wolf remarks 'what little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired'.

Women Seeking Men (Dirty Housewife)

In 1991, Barbara Kruger was asked to write about "American Manhood", an ideal she summed up as an image of perfection for us to desire; advertisers 'want interchangeable figures, not bodies', she claimed. I find this particular quote incredibly relevant to my current practice, and for considering the stereotypes of femininity and masculinity with which we are constantly presented with. Taking of transvestism, Grayson Perry stated male cross-dressers to be ‘boys who have been constricted in some way in that very narrow male role’, and I believe it is through exposing the extremes of these roles and stereotypes that we begin to break them down. ‘The paradox of phallocentrism…depends upon the image of the castrated women to give order and meaning to its world’ claimed Laura Mulvey in the seminal 1975 ‘Visual Pleasure and NarrativeCinema’, and it is through the lack of penis that the woman becomes embodied "other", existing as a binary opposite to men, and as Butler argues, gender distinctions are only valid upon accepting a social system based upon binary opposites. The woman can only hope to enter into the male - and penis centred - world by becoming an object of male heterosexual desire. Employing the layout of newspaper adverts, the patchwork quilt below employs traditional "feminine crafts" to re-contextualise both this domestic object, and the adverts presenting women as the sexual other and object. When discussing the work of Tracey Emin, Rosemary Betterton described her work as a subversion of 'techniques and genres historically gendered (albeit not exclusively) as feminine, such as embroidery and patchwork quilts... on the one hand, the patchwork quilt was a confirmation of daughterly or wifely skills and virtues, a symbol of the long tradition of domestic femininity... on the other, appliquéd texts and banners were used in Suffrage demonstrations and were revived in women's peace protests in the 1980s as public and political statements of women's rights and identities'. In relation to blanket works such as 'Helter Fucking Skelter' 'the iconoclasm of the texts is at odds with the painstaking and detailed procedure of sewing each letter one by one onto the ground, just as the violent expression of the words belies the warmth and security implied by the blanket... the work refuses any simple reading of female identity' - it is this sense of a multi-narrative work which I hope to have created through selecting examples informed by Lakoff's study of 'women's language'.

'Women Seeking Men (Dirty Housewife)' (2012) embroidery, appliqué and image transfer on appropriated textiles

Kruger states "direct address has been a consistent tactic in my work", and I believe such influence can be seen clearly in this work, using appropriated images and text drawn from mass media, manipulating meaning and cultural value whilst feeding upon ’the image repertoire of popular culture’ (Kruger, 1982). Direct address however requires spectatorship, a position which naturally will be embodied and gendered. Here the speaker has no 'body', and thus I hope to question, confuse and perhaps even to collapse traditional gendered readings and viewing positions - presented alongside sexuality suggestive images of women, the selected text forces us to consider how we view these bodies. Phrases such as 'I WANNA MAKE U COME' and 'WANT 2 HELP U' sends mixed messages - are these figures here for our sexual pleasure, or is this how we should feel towards them. Ultimately, the 'I' and 'U' are interchangeable, unfixed and ungendered, and call into question such a presentation of female sexuality, in which 'we are taught that the needs of women are in direct conflict with the needs of men' and that sexuality and desire is in effect based upon a power struggle; reporting upon sexual violence, an article in the Guardian summarised this struggle as 'an insistence on "purity" [which] is just the other side of the coin of insisting on sexually servicing other men. In both cases, the body of a woman exists in the battlefield of male control.'

Charlie Snow; Dream Patchwork Quilt Project

I was thrilled to be invited to take part in fellow Fine Artist and craft enthusiast Charlie Snow's 'Dream Quilt Patchwork Project'. Relating strongly to my own current work, I felt the project captured the essence of traditional quilt making; ultimately, the coming together of different ideas, memories and experiences to create a snapshot of culture and society. The project asks contributors to create a patch representing a dream they have experienced - my patch below depicts a reoccurring dream of owning a vintage tea room, using appropriated bedding and padded appliqué.

The finished piece can be seen at the Northumbria BA (Hons) Fine Art Show, private view on June 14th 2012 and The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, private view 5th July 2012.

How To Make A Patchwork Quilt

While working upon my current pieces, I came across 'Let Me Tell You', right, in the Eldon Square Shopping Centre, Newcastle. The piece, created by the Northern Engagement into Recovery from Addiction Foundation (NERAF) aims to present various stories surrounding 'the good and bad days' of caring for someone recovering from addiction. I was instantly reminded here of the 1995 films 'How to Make an American Quilt' - working on her master's thesis and unsure of her recent engagement, 26 year old Finn decides to spend the summer with her grandmother and great aunt, where she meets a quilting bee of local women working upon a quilt for her wedding, and, in joining them, hears tales of romance and sorrow, as they 'question of whether monogamous life long marriage is a realistic goal'. As suggested by Sally J. Scholz, 'society perpetuates itself through the rituals and signs that constitute the 'symbolic order'', and these are learned through language; she highlights the phallocentric nature of our use of language, offering examples of marital titles, and customarily patronymic family names. As such quilts were a common wedding gift, often utilising sentimental fabrics from memorable events in the lives of the makers, I felt a female craft so strongly linked with the traditionally phallogocentric ritual of marriage could both compliment and contradict the contemporary dating adverts, while the use of bedding was loaded in itself with suggestions - as claimed in Shakespeare's Othello, females are 'players in [their] housewifery, and housewives in [their] bed' - ultimately, women only go to "work" when then go to bed, suggesting a sense only of sexual worth. This "housewife-whore" opposition references a view of women only in terms of satisfying male desire, and an 'active/male and passive/female’ position - even through language, women are still considered in relation to the way they are "seen". As considered by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune in their text 'Reclaiming the F Word; The New Feminist Movement', 'a girl can't win. If she doesn't portray herself as 'sexy' and desirable, she's called frigid. Yet if she's sexually active, she's a slut... women learned to see themselves as sexual objects, not subjects'. Developing from my earlier attempts, I began drawing upon adverts both looking for partners, and those advertising the sexual services of women. Taking these phrases out of context, and with no representation of the speaker, it is never made explicit as to the sex or gender of either speaker or reader.

'Untitled' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

'Untitled' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

Elizabeth Price; 'HERE'

While back in Newcastle, I was able to view the latest works on show at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art - after speaking to friends, I was particularly looking forward to experiencing the video pieces of Elizabeth Price in her exhibition 'HERE'. Price's practice sees her appropriate existing film, photography, music and text to create 'immersive video installations' which explore our commodity culture and consumerism. Upon being lead into a darkened room, three works were spread across three screens, 'Choir', 'West Hinder', and probably my favourite piece of the exhibit, the 2009 work 'User Group Disco', below; here we are presented with a 'Hall of Sculptures' in which various consumer goods are combined with text and the almost surreal addition of A-Ha's 'Take On Me'.

Elizabeth Price, USER GROUP DISCO, 2009 from Contemporary Art Society on Vimeo.

I recognised the ending quote, which suggests we will realise that we are all 'a mere appearance, dreamt by another' as a reference to Jorge Luis Borges' 'The Circular Ruins' - the story tells the tale of a wizard who dreams of a young man, and calls upon the God of Fire to bring him into existance, on the condition he accustoms him to reality. Sent to live in a distant temple, the young man becomes famous for his ability to walk through fire unharmed; the wizard hears of these stories, and visits his creation to find the temple ablaze. Walking into the flames he notices he remains unharmed - it is 'with relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another.' Such themes of undefined reality and idealism I feel are clearly mirrored within Price's work. 'User Group Disco' questions the nature and language of categorisation and draws attention to the classification of objects, which I believe forces us to question whether our perception of reality is an elaborate illusion created through language. Utilising text appropriated from celebrated male authors, I found the complex weaving and subversion of various sources a great area for contemplation in relation to my own work.

Appropriation has always been a key aspect of my work; taken from the title of a BBC debate, 'Is Porn Bad For Society?', below, was inspired by a comment made on the show, in which one speaker described women in the porn industry as 'blow up dolls made of flesh'; by merging a mould of my mouth and jaw and a mannequin's head to create the bust of a sex doll. Similar to the mannequins seen through out Fassbinder's 'The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant', these figures represent a relationship based upon complete subordinance, and a master-slave relationship detrimental to the sexual position of women. By subverting this symbol of female domination into an object of decoration via the use of traditional "feminine" crafts, we are forced to reassess the presentation of female sexuality. As Lakoff suggests 'speech about women implies an object, whose sexual nature requires euphemism, and whose social roles are derivative and dependent in relation to men. The personal identity of women thus is linguistically submerged', and the the direct nature of the text in this work, similar to the work of artists such as Kruger and Emin, leaves us unsure as to the speaker and of to whom the "I" refers to - the sexualised yet dominated "female", or the audience for viewing her in such a way.

'Is Porn Bad For Society?' and details (2011) mannequin's head, plaster strips, appropriated and embroidered textiles, buttons

Developing from this earlier work, I began to consider the importance phrases in which the signifer has no fixed signified, and as such vary from each discursive instance. As presented by Kaja Silverman in 'The Subject of Semiotics' 'the signifer "you" addressed by one person to another immediately translates in the mind of the second person into "I"... "I" derives its value from "you"... just as "black" refers to "white", or "male" to "female".' With this in mind, the use of pronouns such as "I" and "you" present us with the chance to subvert speaker/audience positions, and challenge ideas of gendered speech. The piece below, taken from an advert for a "call girl" company, when taken from its original context, has no fixed speaker, and as such no fixed gender.

'I Wanna Make You Come' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles