Natura Morta

This composite photograph consists of an image of a well-dressed family overlaid with a screen of tattered lace, a fan, and plastic flowers. The family portrait has been strategically cropped and covered to eliminate all three males, with the two boys obscured by three-dimensional manifestations of the accessories assigned to each girl on the periphery of the image. While in the original configuration the two daughters are located on the margins of the family—standing behind or apart from the central familial unit—here they have become the main subjects. The fan, the lace, and the flowers are all objects that have taken on gendered connotations, and here these tools for the subjugation of women are rendered tangible and used to reconfigure the position of women within the family. Though they all bear marks of deterioration, perhaps signaling the datedness of feminine signifiers or commenting on the rigidity of gender expectations, they are still imbued with physical power and the ability to reshape traditional narratives of family and gender.