After researching and reading about her work, instead of having a direct re-make of Jemima Stelhi’s ‘Strip Series‘ made in 2000, my group and I decided to respond to that work.
Why is it that Stehli only focuses on the male gaze? Why does she ignore the female gaze? How would people respond if a man had done the same exact work as Stehli?
As we reversed the roles, trying to reach a sort of ‘gender equality’, my group and I made Ryan, one of our group members strip in front of a group of girls in our class.
We got different responses : Laughter, Some girls felt too uncomfortable as he undressed and decided to leave, whereas some had a serene and focused reaction.
For the background colors, there is no justification as we could not find answers to why Jemima Stehli had chosen specific colored backgrounds.
We noticed that the female gaze is too much of a broad topic: It depends on each individual. In order to get answers to the questions we asked ourselves as we were re-making Stehli’s work, we would also need to have a girl strip in front of a group of male students, to be able to compare.
The most interesting and beneficial part of this project was the research. I got to go in depth on a really important subject: Feminism. I discovered that certain terms had to be used for specific thoughts and ideas. There are multiple approaches to feminism : first, second, third wave feminism that I was not aware of before.
A ‘Strip Serie’ that seemed so banal on the surface, held so much depth that viewers of the work are unaware of.
If there were a third part, I would probably work on the layout of our re-make: Instead of having it projected, I would have the pictures placed on a wall.
