My Femininity Is Held With Clothespins.
2021. Photographic series.
In Spanish, the expression “estar cogido con pinzas” (whose literal meaning would be ‘to have something held with clothespins’, although it loses its idiomatic sense) conveys the idea of handling something delicately or tentatively because it is fragile, unreliable, or not well-founded. It suggests that something is not fully secure, solid, or trustworthy and requires caution or skepticism.
Having long hair is one of the attributes that most contributes to my perceived femininity in the eyes of others.
I have always failed to master hairstyling techniques, and my hair has never been subjected to bleaching, dyeing, or straightening. However, braiding my hair and cutting my bangs have become small escapes from the everyday experience, activities I perform without thinking about anything else.
With this photographic series, I aim to challenge the patterns imposed by the aesthetics of normative beauty surveillance: the constant vigilance over my physical appearance and even the pressure to undergo treatments and surgeries that perpetuate and reaffirm a prototypically white and ageless femininity.
Grabbing with clothespins my femininity attributes means not taking them too seriously, but do explore with and take care of them. It enables to see them as non-definitive and non-definitory aspects of my ever changing self.
