kiley

INFO

concept creator: alexandra prado

writer: alexandra prado

implicit message investigators: alexandra prado & kiley campbell

directors: alexandra prado & shealyn mcfadden

model: kiley campbell

drawing on inspiration from: levi-strauss, rubin, irigaray, foucault, bartky

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My Body, a Battleground:

An Investigation of Power and the Female Body Through Protest Language

For this project, I’ve decided to investigate the female body, as not only an object of power, but as a grounds for power struggles. To do so, I examined a phenomenon I’ve become far more familiar with over the past few years--protests. Discussions surrounding the construct of gender--particularly feminism, trans rights, GNC rights, and body policing--have become rallying points for our generation. What better place to investigate the power structures at play than the deliberately catchy protest slogans, the carefully contained explosions of deep-seated passion?

I began by looking at these popularized protest statements and attempted to decipher some of the implicit messages within them. Some seem obvious, others a less so, but all are indicators that a sign can hold a lot more than four words. 

I then juxtaposed these implicit messages, carriers of both pride and shame, with one of the very objects of their expression--the female body, and specifically, the body of a trans woman. I wanted to capture some of the raw emotion felt towards the struggles at hand, and to show how the movements can both empower and degrade. 

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