Thursday 4 December 2014

A Womans Work

11 years old, round the corner from my house was my first encounter with a man who saw me not as a small girl, but a sexual object where he felt it was acceptable to comment and stare at my body. It didn't flatter me or make me feel good about myself but instead made me feel powerless,vulnerable and confused. Getting older, the problems faced with street harassment only got worse. Even at age 14, I've had men tell me they want me but when I chose to ignore and walk away, they'd become fuelled with anger, most likely because for a tiny second there I had the power. Which of course they'd take back by calling me a whore. As I write about my own experiences, I know that girls reading this will have gone through the exact same thing. In fact I guarantee every girl will be nodding their heads thinking of the countless times they have to experience street harassment. I asked my 12 year old sister if she has started getting attention from men and she looked sadly into my eyes and told me yes. 6 years later from when I was just 11 and absolutely nothing has changed.

This is when I knew I needed to, for myself and for everyone experiencing the same, create something in my art where I could show the truth about the way women are constantly treated by men. So, I began asking friends, some sent anonymous, some not, the same question: What is the worst thing a boy has ever done or said to you?

I didn't expect to get so many responses, in fact it was so heartbreaking that every girl I asked personally had something to tell me and even more heartbreaking that the responses I got were so horrifying.  I took all these responses and began creating one story about a girl who got into an abusive relationship experiencing rape, molesting and physical abuse. As if these girls stories has become every girls reality. 

I then used these responses and sewed them onto doilies, a typical type of a woman's work. I then created a tea party where the doilies were covered by cups and saucers. This represented the way in which some women are treated by some men is never really spoken about. Countless sexual abusive experiences and rapes are unreported and it became the sort of idea that the tea party looked perfect but underneath lay important and unspoken issues. 




Monday 17 November 2014

The worst thing

Sooo 6 months after finishing my Art AS-level, I've decided I should probably share a piece of writing I created about the harsh reality of the way women can and have been treated by some men.


I began asking girls all the same question: What is the worst thing a boy has ever done or said to you? I started to receive more and more responses of real experiences girls have dealt with. I was so overwhelmed with the honesty of these girls but also the brutal and traumatising experiences they'd had to come to face with. I knew that I needed to create some sort of message with these responses, something to really let people know the dark secrets most women are too afraid to speak about. So I used every response I got from my question and turned it into a story about a very young girls sexually, physically and mentally abusive relationship. It is as if the story was that each of these girls experiences has become every girls reality. Sadly, everything is true apart from it all being experienced by one girl. 

(also a very big thank you to every girl who had the courage to answer this question) 

I was 13 when he began speaking to me. I was already used to the regular shouts of things like ‘slut’ or a car honking since I’d hit puberty early. I never knew his real age but I was too naïve to care.  At first it was all sweet talk. He’d take me out to gigs, stroke my legs and squeeze my arse. I liked the affection. But I never realised it was just so he could get into my pants. I was too young to understand that’s all he wanted. I thought it was real.  At first he’d say things like ‘‘aren’t you going to shave babe, before we...’’ and push me against the wall, pulling me, touching my face. I didn’t really understand what he was doing but I went along with it and did what he said. But what started out to be a little aggressive began to get worse.

He’d make me do stuff I didn’t even know existed. There were times where I was too afraid, he’d try and take my clothes off but when I said no he’d push my legs down on the bed and do it anyway. I would lie there lifeless as he fucked me, and fucked me as if I was as useful to him as a doll. He would threaten to kill me if I didn’t have sex with him and give me abuse saying things like ‘You’re a psycho with an eating disorder’ and call me a slut and whore. He told me to groom myself and advised me to self-orgasm to rid my headache.

There were things he did to me that make me feel sick, he used me as a blow up doll and forcefully analed me. I began to ignore him when I knew this wasn’t right. But he’d always find me and I was too scared to say no again. He would come and stroke me and tell me he was sorry but when I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore he said to me ‘If I stroked you... that’s not sexual, I stroke my dog’. He blamed me for everything. Said he only wanted it as a one-night thing and that he planned to only take me out once and dump me after without the guilt. ‘Don’t flatter yourself’ he would say.

I was going back out with him a few months after I tried to end it. I was 14 now. He’d corner me into a room and try and kiss me and stick his hands down my bra. He’d whisper in my ear ‘women are only good for one thing!’ and make me take my pants off so he could touch me.

Nothing I did was ever good enough for him, or even for myself. When I wore clothes that didn’t show my body he’d tell me to put something shorter and tighter on, yet when I wore skirts above the knee he told me I had no respect for myself.

He would perform sexual acts on me while I was fast asleep and then tell me it was my own fault because I didn’t have sex with him earlier, calling me ‘frigid.’ He would take me out to parties and show me off in front of all the older boys. One once made a remark about my boobs and someone else shouted ‘’what boobs? She’s as flat as fuck, it’s appalling mate.’’ I felt humiliated. Another time he took me to a party in the middle of nowhere drugged my drink then raped me while I was unconscious. He told me I probably got too drunk and that it was my fault, that I shouldn’t cry wolf. He emotionally manipulated me, making it impossible to leave the relationship. It began to get physically abusive too. He began stubbing cigarette butts out on me every now and then and progressively got worse. On one occasion he broke three of my ribs, my collarbone and right arm. All I’d done was to show up for a movie eight minutes late.

He also used my eating disorder as another way to abuse me. He’d scream at me ‘’You’re a fucking self-absorbed, narcissistic, attention-seeking bitch. Go ahead and cut yourself and make yourself sick, you deserve it, you deserve all the pain in the world.’’ That ‘’if anyone ever got to my size they should kill themselves to stop anyone having to see such a disgusting sight’’ I didn’t really understand why he was still wanted me. That wasn’t it though. He told me that it was good for my own sake that I got seriously ill, so then I could lose weight. He controlled my life, telling me that if I didn’t lose the weight I’d recently gained recovery, he’d hurt me ‘’because it was obvious I didn’t care much about our relationship if I made no effort with my appearance.’’

Everything seemed to be happening so fast. I lost sense of time. I never thought I’d be that girl. You hear about it from other people, other stories. You get frustrated because it seems so simple to leave or just go to the police. It isn’t. You feel as if there’s nowhere, no one to turn to. No one seemed to notice what was going on and that scared me. Most days I wished he’d just kill me. I was fuelled with self-hate. The pain would get too much that he’d be doing me a favor to just end it. And I thought that even if I ever got out of it, the memories would always be there. It seemed as if living, surviving wasn’t worth it anymore.

He took away my innocence and the womanly features I once seemed to have. I was forced to grow up in the middle of what should have been a happy childhood. I constantly felt dirty like I needed to clean myself over and over. What he did made me feel inferior to him and men as a whole. I felt like it was somehow my fault - the fact that it made me feel as if I was in the wrong. He made me feel less than human, as if he was the superior gender.

Years later I bumped into him at the pub. I began screaming at him, telling him to leave. The fucking prick looked me up and down and smiled and said, ‘’Look at you, all grown up. I don’t know why you want me to leave, nobody else complained.” And as he was leaving he whispered to me ‘’I never loved you anyway, not even for a second.’’ Those words haunt me to this day.   

Tuesday 11 February 2014

A long time with not much done


Four months later and really everything is exactly the same, except a new year. I should really be saying these past few months I've been too busy to blog because I've been working hard... but realistically that hasn't been the case. A levels, as every single person will say whose been through them are incredibly hard and an insane jump from GCSE's. I'm lazy and only really get work done last minute so as per, I've been avoiding work and doing absolutely nothing but watching crappy t.v series and hibernating until evening.

I've had a few major changes like moving back to my old school from being at a new sixth form for a couple weeks. Although moving back meant I couldn't carry on with film studies which was one of my favourite subjects, it's worth it. I now only do three subjects: History, English Literature and Art which I'm perfectly fine with and enjoying a lot (apart from the doing your own work thing)

I wish I could post something I've made or done recently like a new video or some art but I've been so unmotivated and uninspired I have zero to show. Not really sure if there is even point in this post?

I realised in my last post I was talking about Gwen Stefani and how I really wanted to dress up as her for a fancy dress party.. well I did (all the way back in October) and it was oh so very exciting!  This is the only photo I have and it isn't my full outfit either! (next to Paris Hilton yhhhh) 


The only couple things I've really done is a few exhibitions : Sarah Lucas' and Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore! As well as a little trip to Paris during the Christmas holidays.

Trip to Paris, one of favourite cities. I have family and friends living in Paris and as my older sister was off skiing, my dad had just been away, I proposed the idea that me, my little sister and my mum went to Paris for a few days after Christmas. So off we went to stay in a perfect parisian apartment. Walking around the familiar streets, I once again fell in love with everything. My mums friend owns one of the top 3 bajjs in Paris so we got to dine on the boat for free eating classic french food and drinking classic french wine. We got plenty of shopping done too, as well as some typical tourist site seeing and then escaping the cold, rushing into cafes for a coffee or hot chocolate alongside a crepe. 


















I went to see an art exhibition in Whitechapel of Sarah Lucas'. Penises and boobs alongside chickens and fruit, Lucas shows the truth.  'The bawdy euphemisms, repressed truths, erotic delights and sculptural possibilities of the sexual body'. She uses things like fried egg or melons breasts, a chickens body, and a cucumber penis to objectify the woman's body. I particularly loved the idea of not showing any heads, even in the big installations of the males body, she cut out the heads. This is similar to some work I did last year in Art GCSE, where I focused on the woman's body and became influenced by artists like Linder Sterling and Baraber Kurger. In my work I always cut off the faces of the woman to take away their individuality, to show not only that woman are treated badly as a gender rather than individually, but also that woman's bodies can be objectified and seen as something completely sexual rather than a real person. 




I decided to use Lucas in my art and develop some of my own ideas from her. I especially loved the art work she did on the toilet where she painted 'IS SUICIDE GENETIC?' 


So I did my own response with my own words that I have been working on in my art 'I was 12' and 'Don't flatter yourself' (They are very personal topic to many people I know so not going to go beyond the meaning of them.. so unless you are my art teacher or my examiner then sorry not sorry)





I wasn't too pleased with this as because the toilet had just been cleaned (not me) and I had flushed it numerous times, it was still wet which meant the paint kept dripping down but it wasn't a total disaster. Enough with the art now.  

I also went to another exhibition last week at the Somerset house: Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore! Although I've kind of steered away from fashion at the moment (I do need to change my blog title urgently) My mum who had already been said even if I'm not completely into fashion, the clothes that are on show are incredible, and she was right. Her designs are so beautifully and delicately made, sometimes so sculpture like. 





 

While I'm writing this I may as well add that my older sister has gone to South America for 5 and a half months so I'm left being the big sister.  And I've booked tickets to the Sgp festival (secret garden party), booked flights and an apartment to Budapest and soon will be booking tickets to Sziget festival -- looks like a fab summer already! Now just gotta get through exams and I'll be freeeee


Apart from all of this, I've mostly just been doing the usual teenage thang and hopefully will continue doing that for the rest of my life



M x

Thursday 3 October 2013

October trash

Posting for the sake of it, I've got nothing interesting to say as I've done nothing interesting recently but I can always find something to babble on about! 

So now its October, one of the best months of winter, its probably time for new clothes (more?!???) But since the weather is so unpredictable I'm not sure if buying a winter coat now is worth it! Anyway, avoiding work I've been online browsing again - mostly on Asos market place as I'm trying to budget my spending since I don't actually have much money or a job to fund for clothes. 

(These pictures are a bit odd since they aren't actually me but random people...)





There are so many more clothes I've got tabbed but these pictures just aren't doing it so I'll leave it with three! 

Ummmmm Gwen Stefanis 80/90s fashion still makes me cry with amazement! 





I just want the opportunity to be her for a fancy dress party so I can dye my hair blue and wear bindis and sequins all around my face! Talking about hair, I'm getting so fed up of my bleach blonde colour. My roots are horrendous and I have no energy, money or time to keep re dying them. I want to go back to a more natural blonde with different tones, just something more manageable so I don't need to keep re dying my hair! 

Inspiration obviously from Sky: 



And then I can still dye my hair different colours because it'll still be blonde!!! I miss being lilac so much and kind of want to experiment with turquoise or very light blue.. why not? But knowing me I'll probably be too lazy to do any of this with my hair :( 





I seem to always end my posts about the latest films, tv series or music I've been watching or listening to! BUT OBVIOUSLY ALL THE BREAKING BAD FANS OUT THERE WATCHED THE LAST EPISODE ON MONDAY! SHIT. Too sad it's over and very tempted to re watch the series again. 




But as soon as it was over I started new series: Orange Is The New Black which I love. (Already half way through the first series and it's been four days) I do recommend to watch if you want something quite funny and easy. It's quite similar to the t.v series Weeds (not the plot but the general feel to it)



M x





Thursday 26 September 2013

Photographers Gallery - A School Trip

The Photographers gallery has chosen to work with one of my schools, Parliament Hill. Last week we had a writer who collaborates with the gallery come in and talk to us. We will be working on a project with her alongside the course work for a couple weeks. We haven't been told much on what we're doing so there isn't much I can blog about right now. However, since we are working with her, my photography class with another Year 12 class went to the Photographers Gallery on Wednesday. We saw two exhibitions: Mass Observation: This is Your Photo and Mark Neville's Deeds Not Words. We had a few simple tasks set for us that got us to search for particular photographs around the two exhibitions with written clues to help us. By doing this we got to observe the photos in a lot more detail to see if it fits the clues. I liked this way of looking at photos as you get to notice a lot more about the particular photo than if you were just passing by. After this we went round the gallery again finding three of our favourite photographs and wrote on paper 'What Do You See?' Again this helped understand the picture a lot more as we'd have to look at every little thing we saw and write it down. My favourite photos were all from the same exhibition (which was also my favourite out of the two) called Deeds Not Words. 

''Deeds Not Words is an experimental documentary project and an urgent intervention. For 18 months Mark Neville photographed the town of Corby in Northamptonshire: its people, its culture and the effects of the environmental pollution led to several babies being born with serious birth defects... The photographs present the community as a whole, not simply the families at the centre of the case. They show persisting Scottish identity in the English town, young woman at nightclubs, entrants in a beauty contest, children dressed for the town's Highland games.'' 

My favourite pictures out of the whole exhibition were the sequenced photographs of two boys 
 both born with fingers missing, said to be caused by the toxic waste and contaminated land the mothers would have absorbed in at pregnancy. 







At first glance, these photos were just of a boy who had three fingers, popping a balloon in a dark room. I instantly felt they were very powerful but didn't really understand the purpose of the photos. A woman then came up to me and my friend and began speaking to us about the actual meaning of the photos. She had listened to the photographer, Mark Neville a week before who spoke at the photographers gallery about his exhibition. 

Neville had asked this boy to sit in a dark room, as soon as he popped the balloon the sound triggered the flash to go off taking these three photographs that a human eye would never experience: high speed photography. This mirrored the idea that we cannot see these pollutants acting on people but just see the after effects. Knowing this made the photos even more powerful and being able to understand the images of why Mark photographed it and what it means made me a lot more interested in the whole exhibition. 

More photos from the exhibition: 




After looking at the two exhibitions (I have to say I didn't pay much attention to the Mass Observation) we were asked to take some Street Photography photos. We had to make sure the photos we took linked someway to our favourite photos we wrote about earlier. This could be anything, from taking pictures of something red representing the balloon or a picture of girls representing the images above. 


                             

The pink of the rubbish bags and the bin are meant to represent the femininity of the two pictures of the girls I posted above. The dress links to the dresses they were wearing for their beauty contest. 





The red links to the red balloon photographed by Mark Neville. 

Apart from these photos I did get some more however they don't have any meaning and aren't the best I've done but thought I might as well throw them in there. 






After I got home I was too lazy to do any work so I watched a film instead. MEMONTO!!!!! 

I loved it so much, the whole story line was genius. ''A man, suffering from short-term memory loss, uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife.''  Christopher Nolan is a truly intelligent and talented man. 




The more and more I watch new films, the more I get inspired to make my own but having to handle school work, social life and my own interests is very time consuming and I seem not to be too good with it. But I have thought of some new ideas for short films which I'll be able to gradually film and edit when I'm out. So hopefully I'll be able to post some more videos soon! 

M x