A Princess Like You
In 2006, I overheard comments at an opening that inspired me to begin work on A Princess Like You. I noticed, that as certain women looked at early pieces from my Proudly to the Vast Ballroom series, they were comparing notes with their friends about the stories that they knew, and how they loved or hated them. I hung out at the opening eavesdropping on the conversations about Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella and The Little Mermaid, and was stunned and overjoyed to hear people, and particularly college aged women, remembered these stories, and could still identify with them rather easily.
Over the course of 8 months, I interviewed 100 women, aged 4-76, about fairy tales. I asked if they liked them when they were small, if they still liked them now, and what aspects of these stories did they find misleading at this point in their lives (a different set of questions was asked to those participants under 15 years of age). Were they still interested in passing them on to the children in their lives, and how, by telling these stories to our little girls, were we affecting our little boys? I wanted to know why the original stories were seemingly evolving into tales for the status quo, encouraging white heterosexual women to domesticate, marry and have children. How had the stories, at one time subversive tools of education used by women and for women, become tools used to convince our culture that this was the standard by which to judge? I was primarily interested in finding out if and how these stories could be reclaimed, and if there was a community of women who were up to this challenge.
By being privileged enough to speak to a tremendously diverse range of truly brilliant women, I was happy to find that the answer is yes.
This exhibition and the corresponding sound installation opened at the Center for Photography at Madison in March 2006, and is dedicated to the memory of Leanne Johnson, who was a beautiful storyteller and a wonderful friend.
Over the course of 8 months, I interviewed 100 women, aged 4-76, about fairy tales. I asked if they liked them when they were small, if they still liked them now, and what aspects of these stories did they find misleading at this point in their lives (a different set of questions was asked to those participants under 15 years of age). Were they still interested in passing them on to the children in their lives, and how, by telling these stories to our little girls, were we affecting our little boys? I wanted to know why the original stories were seemingly evolving into tales for the status quo, encouraging white heterosexual women to domesticate, marry and have children. How had the stories, at one time subversive tools of education used by women and for women, become tools used to convince our culture that this was the standard by which to judge? I was primarily interested in finding out if and how these stories could be reclaimed, and if there was a community of women who were up to this challenge.
By being privileged enough to speak to a tremendously diverse range of truly brilliant women, I was happy to find that the answer is yes.
This exhibition and the corresponding sound installation opened at the Center for Photography at Madison in March 2006, and is dedicated to the memory of Leanne Johnson, who was a beautiful storyteller and a wonderful friend.
