metaphorical tomboy study #3- "coming out of the fog"

Natural Selection

Historical representation of people, places and things, can be traced through photographic records. Photography has the capacity to capture and bear witness to real social conditions.


Brend & Hilla Becher Anonymous Sculptures: A Typology of Technical Construction (1972)


Lesley Turnbull Tomboy Project: A Typology of Natural Progression in Girls (2010

metaphorical tomboy study #2- "frozen Out"

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As my work evolves, I have become increasingly fascinated with the essential and the metaphoric. There are no longer theatrical props, and the need for the human image as my exploration of Tomboyism is altering.

I am testing whether landscape can create some of the core experiences of a Tomboy, with the photography representing archetypal states to explore adolescent emotions such as isolation, being frozen out, boundaries and divisions, desolation, which side of the fence one is sitting on, and the beauty and purity that also encapsulate the Tomboy.

My work is continuing to explore the experiences of being a woman, but I am focussing on the missing voice of the Tomboy. Investigation persists to locate images and narratives that do not patronise the rights of a female to be non-feminine.

It is possible that the corporeal image will fade as I wander through the metaphorical landscape to articulate my theories.

perseverance

n:continuance in a state of grace leading finally to a state of glory.

tomboy project [perseverance]

steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty


jessie


sophie


anon #1


mieke


anon#2

verb [ intrans. ]
continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty

I try not to homogenise the Tomboy, allowing the images to capture the individuality of each Tomboy. The photographs in this series become, an indexical trace that document a (legitimate) female lineage, seemingly unrepresented to date within mainstream Western media and the visual arts.

Saint Joan of Arc

click here to view Saint Joan (misc.)

click to view: Saint Joan played by Angela Sallocker (1935) (Germany)

Joan of Arc b: 1412
executed 1431: age 19.

..'Joan's cross-dressing, claims to divine guidance, and success had aroused suspicions of sorcery, but her subsequent trial and execution for heresy were acts intended primarily to discredit the Valois cause. In response to an accusation by representatives of the University of Paris, her Burgundian captors delivered her for trial at Rouen on Christmas Eve, after seven months of imprisonment at Compiegne, under the direction of Bishop Pierre Cauchon.

Eloquent in testimony and steadfast when threatened with torture, Joan submitted to the charges of cross-dressing only when weakened by illness and faced with execution. She was sentenced to a life of imprisonment and penance.

After only a few days Joan "relapsed," resuming men's clothes once again, and was condemned. Joan, only nineteen years old, was burned at the stake in the public marketplace of Rouen on May 30, 1431.

Courageous to the end, she insisted on her innocence and asked the executioner to hold the cross high so she could see it through the flames. Joan remained a controversial figure, and in 1456 Charles VII arranged the annulment of her conviction mainly to clear himself of a suspect association'.

Joan was canonized by Pope Benedict XV. in 1920.




click here to view: Saint Joan played by Renee Falconetti (1928) dir. Carl Berger U.S.A

JOan played by Jean Seberg (1957) from adaptation by Bernard Shaw, U.S.A - click here to view

mieke