Margaret Lawther

SOME VERY SERIOUS TRUE ROMANCES
05.15–06.08.1997

This work questions mass-media representations of women as well as the interpretation of femininity in contemporary culture. My aim is to foreground the notion that gender—and femininity in particular—is a construct; it holds no stable position and is neither fixed nor essential.

Furthermore, this work is part of an ongoing photographic project I have been developing for several years. Through a variety of photographic techniques, this project serves as both a study and a critique of contemporary culture and media representations.

It is important to me to examine the impact of media technology on culture and consciousness. I have sourced images from various origins to create a series of works in a format that evokes a mass-cultural genre: the comic book. By employing a presentation strategy that uses photographic imagery as its text or language, I aim to highlight the danger in contemporary culture of losing access to a “real” external representation. Regarding the representation of women, this danger is ever-present and has played a pivotal role in shaping gender-based identities and stereotypes. In contemporary culture, access to the real is rarely unmediated by representation. Through the media, the boundary between the real and the simulated becomes blurred and indistinct. My goal with this work is not to establish new definitions of cultural representations of women, but rather to view them as images in the process of construction—thereby effectively disrupting their automatic consumption and acceptance.

Text: Margaret Lawther