Rape.

 

Not a nice word at all.

 

But a situation many men do not really have to fear for in their lives.

 

This project gave me a glimpse of a world where I would worry for my physical safety every day.

 

Welcome to my work on feminism and dystopia told through art.

 

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I’ll be honest, I was not at all thrilled when I heard what my new project was about, that being feminism; but I didn’t know how much a book could change my perspective.

 

The Power by Naomi Alderman is definitely not something I would have picked off the shelf to spend my next five hours and admittedly was not my favorite book of all time, it definitely opened my ideas to a concept not thought of tomorrow.

 

This idea of a world where women become the physically dominant sex explores a lens for men that we would not think about, especially in our modern day world. This is an example of a book that brought me into place I probably would have never stopped to imagine and through this, allowed me to empathize with a vital concept on society.

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We were tasked to talk about our learnings from the book in feminism and apply it to our understanding of society. The driving question was specifically:

How can we use conceptual art to portray feminist ideas and their influence on society?

Concept art was a construct we studied that places a significance on the meaning of the piece rather than the actual craftsmanship. This means it was not all about making the fanciest artwork but rather making  something that can tell a story and invoke thought.

My book, like the title, was all about the balance of “powers” in society so I chose to make my art all about this. It had to symbolize and tie these key ideas in:

– The empowerment of feminism

– The difference between the oppressed and the those with power

– The issues that scale with greater power disparity

I ultimately chose to tell these with mirrors and tape as it show cases both restraint, repair and the person.

Here is an artist statement I wrote about my art that will explain it further:

In our thematic book reading groups who we did the exhibition with, we also had to make a sign post detailing the entire exhibit. I worked with Nathan, Amy and Indy but unfortunately only Nathan would attend the exhibition with me.

 

Finally, here are some images of the product which honestly turned our way better than I expected! Choosing mirrors and tape was definitely a good idea from its versatility as an art tool.

The Opressed:

The Empowered:

Overall, the feedback was really positive. Many guests fully understood my message and would ask questions deep enough to make stop and think. I think that if they had not understood the symbolism of my art, they would not have been able to create such comprehensive questions. I had many interesting conversations with guests one specifically about my view as a man which helped me build deeper insight into various differing views.

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We can use conceptual art to tell stories of anything really, but with feminism, I chose not only to showcase a group that was historically oppressed but people who rise up and combat their unfavourable situations.