the subject|object project
Exploring the way we objectify the people around us.
“[The] asymmetry in sexual education maintains men’s power in the myth: They look at women’s bodies, evaluate, move on; their own bodies are not looked at, evaluated, and taken or passed over. But there is no “rock called gender” responsible for that; it can change so that real mutuality—an equal gaze, equal vulnerability, equal desire—brings heterosexual men and women together.”
be a part of subject|object
what is subject | object?
We objectify each other.
We judge on appearance, on styles of dress or speech. On the way that someone’s hair is done or the size of their body, or their breasts, or their muscles. On the cut of their suit or the aftershave they wear.
We are all people, yet we do not see each other: just objects moving through our space.
subject | object is a photographic art project that aims to explore our perception of people, and the way we objectify those we've never even met.
how does it work?
Each subject is photographed twice for the project: A head-and-shoulders portrait (“object”) and a full-figure nude (“subject”). The two images will never be displayed together; there is no link between the “object” and the “subject”.
With the “subject” are displayed the subject’s details: their name (or pseudonym), age, profession, and their thoughts on the objectification of people in the modern world.
The “object” images are displayed alone, to allow viewers to have their own thoughts on the person in front of them
"Every human body has its optimum weight and contour, which only health and efficiency can establish. Whenever we treat women's bodies as aesthetic objects without function we deform them"
– Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch