Together / alone- under suburban sky: MFA Thesis - Photography and Related Media
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Author
Lin-Liang, LiKeyword
Research Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGION::Aesthetic subjects::ArtPhotography Exhibitions
Suburban America
Gender roles
Housewives
Dressing up
Motherhood
Identity
Feminism
Date Published
2020-05
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Together / Alone--Under Suburban Sky is intrinsically tied to my experience moving to the U.S. at the age 40 from Shanghai, China. Life is drama. For this project, I dressed up as an ordinary suburban housewife to show scenes of daily life. I made some images like film footage by using long exposures and 16:9 ratio. The inclusion of dialogue gave an understanding of the tension between family members. Each picture depicts a dramatic conflict. The male, as husband and father, was sometimes physically absent from the images, but actually, he is never fully absent, as he always shows up as a symbol. The main actress, as mother and wife, appears in most of the images, however, she is never fully shown. The mother is not just herself; she represents all females in the same situation. For the past two years, this project has been the primary source material in creating a body of work that explores the migrant narrative and my suburban housewife experience, albeit through a personal lens. Photography is an effective way to depict real scenes in life and can challenge norms of female sexuality, beauty, domesticity, and identity. While my need to decipher and address my own life is personal, my work has always touched upo n universal themes, with the potential to start a dialogue about cultural differences and similarities. The suburban life is very peaceful. It represents middle-class lifestyle, with a comfortable house, two or three kids, and a hardworking husband. They are living together; however, she feels lonely. In Betty Friedan’s words, the problem has no name.The following license files are associated with this item:
- Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States