Mini-drama #05 - I Can't Breathe!

Shooting the Bride 2012

Through an ironic, humoristic masquerade of the archetypal bride, I tried to present an unconventional commentary on weddings through my photographic series entitled Shooting the Bride. I used the 'white' wedding as a stage to investigate the ways in which brides succumb to various rituals associated with ideologies of femininity and how the traditions of wedding photography perpetuate those ideals. The photographs depict my performance as a perpetual 'before' and 'after' bride, re-enacting various autobiographical narratives revealed to me by newlywed brides whom I interviewed regarding the rituals and preparations they had undergone in order to 'become' the bride. By restaging and mimicking the mini-dramas related by these brides, I tried to expose some of the farcical constructions that are involved in presenting the ideal image of the 'perfect' bride. These hidden narratives try to deny the viewer the fixed album picture commonly associated with wedding photography and subvert the popular notion of a fairy tale wedding presented to us through children's stories, mass media and advertising. My choreographed, still digital photographs are backlit with the use of light-boxes, likened to those found at movie theatres, thereby enhancing and exaggerating the cinematographic feel of the constructed performances — hence the mini-dramas. I consistently deny the viewer the image of the bride in all her glory dressed in a white wedding dress — the ultimate fairy-tale personification of femininity. Ultimately my work examines femininity as it stands today in a so-called westernised 'post-feminist' era and exposes the ways in which women still go about 'presenting' their femininity. Within the context of the theoretical paradigms of the male gaze, masquerade and the agency of women, my work explores the particular ways in which these function for images of the bride, and ultimately, womanhood.

Information retrieved from: https://www.works.io/13982/mini-drama-05-i-can-t-breathe