Date of Submission

Spring 2013

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Daniella Dooling

Abstract/Artist's Statement

“The ‘girl’ revolution also refuses to locate the girl as the beginning of either identity or politics, instead, she represents what Elspeth Probyn calls a ‘political tactic…used to turn identity inside out.’ The girl-sign acknowledges an uncontrollable past, the uncontrollability of the past, its inability to explain the present—and the promising distortions affected when the past suddenly, unpredictably erupts into the present forms of sexual and gendered personhood.”

-Elizabeth Freeman, Packing History, Count(er)ing Generations

Venus Envy started as an investigation of femininity, feminism, gender, and sexuality through the lens of a pink toy camera. It is simultaneously a critique of regression in our culture as well as an exploration of regression as a mode of critiquing contemporary culture. Femininity has a long-term history of being both devalued and imposed on female-bodied individuals; this space functions as a bodily reaction against those notions. Cute becomes a weapon, the “girl” becomes an icon, binaries disintegrate and fall into one another, and the performance of femininity is a protest.

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