For my research project, I wanted to address how Asian women have been objectified and fetishized over the course of history and in contemporary culture. I want to compare and contrast examples of both historical and contemporary cultural imagery to highlight the sexualization and objectification of Asian women and as a result, how it dehumanizes them through those portrayals. The subject is often overlooked, but is relevant to my own experience and has a lot of historical basis that bleeds into modern portrayals. I want to reveal the subtext of how female sexuality is consumed through images and projections in mass media.
Part of my research topic is to focus on the origin of racial fetishism (which is the fetishization of a person or culture to a race that is not one’s own, therefore it involves racial stereotyping and objectifying those bodies who are stereotyped and oftentimes their cultural practices. At its core, to fetishize something or someone is to objectify it to the point that it becomes divorced from the person herself. And it’s easy to see how the fetishization of Asian women developed.
My proposal for the final studio project is to take disposable film photographs of what I associate with the feelings of objectification, dehumanization and disempowerment and display them on a three-dimensional object with an exterior and an interior to show the contrast between what people perceive on the outside and our identity on the inside.
Inside the box I want to create a personal world that expresses how I view my own humanness, vulnerability and womanhood. I want to incorporate objects of raw emotion. Throughout the years I have always felt shame from my own femininity and struggled to dissociate from it, choosing to represent myself ambiguously with a more gender-neutral/’non-binary’ gender identity. I want to challenge how people view me and redefine femininity with power. I need this because I cannot feel strength when denying a part of myself.
