Faculty of Art

Photography

Valerie Gong

Feminine Objects

Feminine Objects is a photography based collage artwork I made, with the idea of expressing how I look at the female body in a historical context of how female bodies were treated and viewed as in society. I stumbled upon this topic when reading a fiction, in which a woman was described as “a ripped peach splitting open of its own accord”. Here, the “Objects” in the title reads as a verb, because despite that a female body is usually viewed as soft and fragile, it is at the same time, a battleground that bears pain, sickness, prejudice and countless generations of men.

“In historical context, there were several time periods in the past, that the idea of women’s biological destiny is to bear children was widely believed. In social context, in numerous societies around the world women are still often judged by the way they dress. In some societies in China, women who can birth male children are much more valued than others, and it is still believed that women who have wider hips can birth boys. These elements are included as collages on top of the original images I took, the purpose is to object these “traditional values” that bring prejudice towards women. I have also chosen to work with fruits, as it stands for fertility. This artwork, combining elements that I collected during research, is a mean to say women are more than what society once saw in them, or are still judging them with. The artwork is an objection as well as my own interpretation of how a female body should be. ”