I and Sasha are both interested in the 70s and 60s performance art often including sexual themes or themes exploring gender. We decided to collaborate bringing our interests together and giving each other our perspective of being male and female and experimenting with relationships male and females can have within art. We both enjoy Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s collaborative work so we thought we’d do something inspired by their performative work.
Our idea for this photograph series was to capture a photograph where our bodies are separate but trapped together almost like the aesthetics of Marina and Ulay’s doorway piece. To me, this piece we created represents the stereotypical gender roles of a woman finding a man to lead her through life and never part.
Ulay and Marina Abramovic doorway:
This photograph is a combination of how I see male and female performance art and the difference between how men and women are expected to display their bodies. The highlighted pink circle we are both holding represents the geometric and unsexualized aspect of how I want to display my body through art and how men can display their body through art.
This photograph is inspired by Orlan. We are measuring the room with our bodies experimenting with the idea of how many Poppy’s and how many Sasha’s we can fit in a space. I found this interesting measuring myself and a 6ft tall male in spaces as it is proven that the modern world is designed for a 6ft tall man. Displaying my body in the same way as Sasha whilst covering the same amount of space as him in this photograph almost gives the woman’s perspective of how the world is not designed for women and any other human that does not fit the specific type above.
Below is an article I found interesting on this subject matter on who the world is designed for.
Orlan measuring space with her body:
Collaborative drawings based on male and female intuitive mark-makings:
We experimented with the idea of intuitive mark-making and if the marks differ in men and women. Stereotypically we would assume women’s marks would be rounder, softer more fluid and men’s would be harder, darker, and sharper. This assumption is due to how men and women display themselves within society and in the art world. I find this very interesting as looking back at these drawings the marks I created fit these stereotypes and the marks Sasha created fit men’s.
