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- Nicola Long
Nicola
Long
How to Be a Woman in 2020; A guide
This project was based on a questionnaire I did regarding the unsolicited comments women receive daily from men about their appearance, attitude and personality. I was inspired by how women were portrayed in sexist 1960’s advertising. I took a series of photographs inspired by the aesthetics in these advertisements. I realised that by taking away the sexist advert and focusing on just the aesthetics, I had given them a new meaning. It became an entirely different thing then. Letting the female control how she was being perceived in an empowering way and owning it. Flipping these comments and advertisements on its head and reflecting it back at its own source. I chose to use a playful, satirical, tongue in cheek tone and produced a series of prints that were exciting. A pastiche of playfulness but at the same time making a comment and doing so in a way that is now ours. Focusing on the positives – now joy had been replaced with these negative connotations. Celebrating women as the protagonist and liberated – these images aren’t for men. They aren’t suited or directed towards the male gaze but actually quite focused on the female gaze.