Fairytale for sale
Caruana, Natasha (2011) Fairytale for sale. [Exhibition/show, Photography]
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Fairytale for Sale extends my practice-based research concerned with narratives of love, betrayal and fantasy. The exhibition presents online adverts of brides wearing redundant wedding dresses – the antithesis of the trophy-wedding album. The series visualises the aspirations of the big day, while providing a snapshot of the discarded moments and how the brides see themselves after the climax of the wedding itself.
The project aims to investigate the interpretation of a shared experience, and forms an archive of the ‘collective memory’ of the wedding day: the innovative manner in which the subjects intervene with the images represents an important part of the visual language. The broader aim was to investigate the social and gender expectations which, through mainstream popular culture (movies, fashion, magazines and even fairytales), contribute to the image of the ‘ideal bride’.
The use of found photography in art practice raises a range of questions about authorship and narrative, which this project aims to address and extend. Fairytale for Sale uses found imagery to investigate the typology of wedding photographs, with the aim of developing a strong political narrative that reveals some of the subtle control mechanisms impacting on women in contemporary western society.
The questions explored in the collection, collation and organisation of the work include how to mediate found images in an ethical way, and how to expand the definition of documentary photography.
The project has been included in contemporary photographic catalogues, printed as a monograph, and has toured widely, including in Hijacked III: Contemporary Photography from Australia and the UK, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney, 2012; Narratives and Narrative Forms, Lianzhou Foto Festival, China, 2012; Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Awards, Toronto and Boston, 2012–13; Married Man and Other Stories, Photofusion, London, 2012; and The Social: Encountering Photography, The Sunderland Museum, 2013.
Reviews have appeared in the following publications: Britsh Journal of Photography (Impersonal portraits), The independent 'ONO by Natasha Caruana', Hotshoe Magazine, Congentious, D Magazine and Foam Magazine.
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