Suffocation Triptychs

May Robinson

I am a third year Classical Civilisations student, with an interest in film, photography and fashion. I am interested in using the ways of thinking I have interacted with in my degree – queer theory, feminism, post – structuralism – and utilising them to add depth to the work that I create.

About the Project

I chose to create a photography series – which I modelled in and directed – in order to explore the effects of climate change from a psychological, eco-feminist and art critical perspective. The series shows nine photos of me in a bathtub full of recycling, with editorial, Avant-garde makeup, and a net dress that I make myself. They are grouped into three triptychs: 3 wide shots of me posing in the bath, 3 close shots of me being pushed into the trash by sets of hands, and three of me being suffocated by clingfilm. I particularly draw of Berger’s book Ways of Seeing to utilise the image as a way of communicating. He states that ‘men act, women appear’: a woman is constantly watching herself, adjusting her presence in order to influence how she will be treated by men.1 In these photos, my body is twisted towards the viewer, open and available, and my expressions are seductive and inviting. I invite the viewer to look, to desire, and yet my expressions ore blank, my eyes vacant like a dead fish. Combined with the trash, this makes for an unsettling image. Women are used to making themselves sexually appealing in order to receive favourable treatment: here, I am asking the viewer to treat me better by not polluting by showing them that I’m am appealing and therefore they should treat me better.

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