Yosiry Beltre, "House Girlie" Series, 2024
Description:
This series is a parody of Carrie Mae Weems' "Kitchen Table Series". In these four photos, I misuse household products such as: using a washing machine as a mirror to put on chapstick, sweeping my kitchen counter with a broom, using my computer in the bathroom, and cooking in my bedroom. One point of these photos is to make the audience laugh and shock them a little. The other point is to tear down the domestic sphere. What do I mean by this? Well, I like many other women were conditioned at a young age to ensure that our houses were in their top shape. Even in progressive families where the mothers/wives work full-time jobs and are highly educated as soon as they come home, they're still obligated to do most of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare. And on top of that, we're still the only ones judged by how clean or well-decorated our houses are by friends, family, and strangers. In contrast, men are allowed to have their houses in any sort of condition without ridicule, because their wives/girlfriends/female relatives can just pick up the slack. When in reality the house is a shared environment. Back to my photo series, me using things in my house incorrectly, when as a woman I'm expected to "know better", was an empowering experience even if it was for only a second.
This series is a parody of Carrie Mae Weems' "Kitchen Table Series". In these four photos, I misuse household products such as: using a washing machine as a mirror to put on chapstick, sweeping my kitchen counter with a broom, using my computer in the bathroom, and cooking in my bedroom. One point of these photos is to make the audience laugh and shock them a little. The other point is to tear down the domestic sphere. What do I mean by this? Well, I like many other women were conditioned at a young age to ensure that our houses were in their top shape. Even in progressive families where the mothers/wives work full-time jobs and are highly educated as soon as they come home, they're still obligated to do most of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare. And on top of that, we're still the only ones judged by how clean or well-decorated our houses are by friends, family, and strangers. In contrast, men are allowed to have their houses in any sort of condition without ridicule, because their wives/girlfriends/female relatives can just pick up the slack. When in reality the house is a shared environment. Back to my photo series, me using things in my house incorrectly, when as a woman I'm expected to "know better", was an empowering experience even if it was for only a second.
Quote 1: "Weems’s black-and-white photographs are like mirrors, each reflecting a collective experience: how selfhood shifts through passage of time; the sudden distance between people, both passable and impassable; the roles that women accumulate and oscillate between; how life emanates from the small space we occupy in the world." -Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems’s Landmark “Kitchen Table Series” By Jacqui Palumbo
Response 1: The "Kitchen Table Series" is relatable to me not only because my kitchen is a communal space, but because of how I was raised to view it from a young girl and now a woman. That's why I decided to make it the subject of my project.
Quote 2: "Canonical, yes — and yet, in many ways, it feels we barely know her apart from the persona we see in her work, in which she often appears, staring down the camera lens, or with her back turned to it, inviting us to see things through her eyes." -NY Times: How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making
Response 2: In some of the photos in her series Carrie Mae Weems obscures herself or makes other things/people the subject, one example is her bird feeding photo; where she stands behind the chair out of the way of the overhead light while feeding a bird. The part about her allowing the audience to see things through her eyes is also similar to my project because it depicts how I view the obligatory nature of women's spaces being domestic through a style that I would use. While my project is about me and my views, I also created this to be related to by people who also feel similarly.
Quote 3: "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge -- and, therefore, like power." - Susan Sontag excerpt from On Photography
Response 3: Photography, especially selfies are powerful because they allow you to tell a story without having to worry about being censored like with books or movies. It also helps that I don't need any fancy props or settings to tell a narrative or spread a message, making the project feel more relatable to me and my circumstances. Similarly, it's exposed people to a lot of different lifestyles like the artist I use for inspiration.
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