For my art installment I wanted to work with something that was important and relative to me. My first instinct was to do something related to music. However, after a few more days of thinking I realized that I didn't feel very into the idea I had, so I kept brainstorming. I finally decided to do something related to feminism in honor of Women's History Month.
I took some inspiration from my friend's halloween costume in 2021 (he dressed as a barbie from the 1900s) and decided to go off of that. The first thing my mind went to was an experience I had had a few days prior that was still upsetting me. The experience was to do with common female stereotypes and how people fit into them. I admitted that the entire conversation was still making me really mad and decided to vent through this art project.
Since I knew I wanted to use Barbie in my project as something most people know about/can relate to, I first dedicated some time to building a huge Barbie Box. I used duct tape, boxes, poster board, and some other miscellaneous materials and ended up with a pretty good Barbie box that I could fit into.
Once that was done, I painted some of the most common stereotypes that I have heard about female and that made me mad, and then cut them out and attached them to the outside of the box to make them look like commentary on women.
To fill some space and actually make my project an installation, I wanted to find some items that had stereotypes attached to boys instead of females. I found some items that had value to me (and that I enjoy using) that also showed male stereotypes, and thought it would be interesting to have them around me.
Then my idea finally started coming together. I set up my installment in a closet (because barbie has the giant closet which is something also associated with females), and set the box in the middle to put emphasis on the point I was getting across. I draped a sheet across the back and attached some pink things, necklaces, and shopping bags to show the 'girls side' of the installment. Around the closet I placed the Mae stereotypical items like a skateboard, basketball, calculator, action figures from sci-fi things, etc.
One thing I specifically put in there to comment on another issue was a gay pride flag. This was to comment about how most girls are expected to be straight from birth and are dressed in pink and playing with barbies before they even know what love is. This was something that I had also picked up on recently and wanted to express through my art piece, even if it wasn't the most direct.
After the scene was set I dressed in a fancy dress and got in the Barbie box. The idea was to show how the ideas and stereotypes on the outside of the box were trapping females and keeping them from exploring 'boyish' things, and keeping them confined to the stereotypes. Overall the pictures turned out not bad but the lighting was dark despite my many light sources, so I edited them to make them brighter.
This project really helped me get out some of my frustration and was a nice introduction to installations and activating a space.
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