Diana Guerra

Map A

Private

Public

Institutional

Commercial

Global

Objective Analytical Stereotypical Idealized Allegorical Personal

MAP 1

Map B

Sentences

1.1 A pair of legs kicking a bloody tampon.

1.2 Pills that cause menstrual bleeding.

1.3 A woman applies blood on her face using a tampon.

1.4 A woman drinking blood in a glass of wine.

1.5 Bloody eyes hanging from branches.

1.6 Bloody cotton balls over a boudoir.

2.1 Women and men wearing lipstick at a wedding.

2.2 A woman and a man’s face fully covered with lipstick.

2.3 Four women brushing their hair with hair combs covered with lipstick.

2.4 A woman and a man tenderly grabbing a mouth (lips and teeth) covered with messy lipstick.

2.5 A shinny purse made with mirrors and covered with messy lipstick.

2.6 A women applying lipstick to her hair as it were hair cream.

3.1 A woman kissing herself instead of kissing a partner.

3.2 A woman talking to herself instead of talking to a partner.

3.3 A woman giving cat food to a kid.

3.4 My tinder date and I wearing wedding clothes on a couch.

3.5 A woman swipes an app but she only sees one man.

3.6 A pair of arms hold air. There is no woman and no man.

4.1 A woman holds a clear detergent box full of screwdrivers.

4.2 Two women drop a bunch of screwdrivers from a box in a laundry machine.

4.3 A group of people follow a woman who is teaching them how to use a screwdriver in their noses.

4.4 A woman shows a man how to introduce a screwdriver in his belly bottom.

4.5 A woman dances around giant screwdrivers.

4.6 A woman screws a deodorant while wearing sunglasses.

5.1 A woman makes a circle with her arm while reciting a Wikipedia definition of ‘woman’.

5.2 A group of school girls spell the Wikipedia definition of ‘woman’.

5.3 A woman wraps roses while telling her own definition of ‘woman’.

5.4 A doll recites an altered version of “El poeta a su amada” by Cesar Vallejo.

5.5 A woman recites an altered version of the Hail Mary prayer and lights flash in the water.

5.6 A woman turns a knob with labels of different moments of the day and we can hear intimate conversations between women.

Visual Explorations - Project Proposals

Project #1: Destroying the house

This project intends to destroy the idea of housewife, who is usually known as an expert in the household. The starting point will be TV commercials of the 60’s that showed women as product ambassadors. In this case in particular, the product will be a detergent called “Punch”, which eventually will destroy the house instead of making it a safe space. The woman becomes dangerous and unreliable; a close idea to what has been stated as the famous ‘crazy woman’.

The medium chosen for this project will be video. It will be a narrative piece similar to a television advertising where a woman will be the protagonist. She will be the expert and will show the steps to use this marvelous product. However, the detergent box won’t be filled with detergent as expected but with screwdrivers, a tool that is “not usually used by women'“. The woman will keep explaining how to use the product and throw out the screwdrivers inside the laundry machine, while another woman looks with surprise and admiration. We will then see the laundry machine having trouble doing its duty and finally breaking. Plenty of foam will come out of the machine and fill the house causing a flood that could damage the whole neighborhood.

Project #2: “Happily Never After”

This project will address the sense of eternal longing in contrast to a ‘happily ever after’ love story. The core idea will be the traditional notion of romanticism found in US TV commercials from the 60’s, where a woman is someone’s partner and the care-giver of the children. This woman is always receiving and giving love, and her identity can’t be taken out of this context. On the other side, we see another woman who is alone. She is sitting by herself; talking to the air; giving food to another species, not like her own; we see her in a portrait with a dark shadow sitting next to her; she swipes ghost profiles, she holds nobody.

The chosen medium for this project will be the actual film footage. The 16mm commercials will be manipulated with bleach and the men will be taken out of the frames. The present becomes visible in the work by an organic manipulation of what we can consider a historical piece in regards to women’s representation in the media. Another product of this project will be the creation of a dating app that will only have empty profiles. The user will be asked to enter some information and take a selfie for their profile, as a regular dating app, but they won’t be able to see anybody. The dating options will be none.

Project #3: “Look at me, I am beautiful”

This project intends to show a surreal and romantic feeling of beauty. The work will address grooming and make-up standards to create an unexpected, maybe scary version of female beauty. If we are supposed to put specific make-up on certain parts of out face and body, the opposite will happen. The woman will become dirty, messy, almost like an alien who doesn’t know how to apply toothpaste, lipstick or powder. In this sense, the project will erase our educational baggage on how to apply products on our bodies and present alternative ways that will seem even unnatural. The sense of romanticism will be enhanced by including the presence of who have been considered traditional partners for women: men. They will now become accomplices in our new versions of beauty.

For this project, the chosen medium will be photography. The goal will be to create beauty scenes where women are applying or have applied some product to their bodies in an unexpected way. For example, in a bathroom, a woman will be looking at herself in the mirror while having the whole face covered with mascara. In another shot, a woman will be sitting naked in her bed with toothpaste all over her body. The inclusion of the partner will make the experience even more surreal. For example, a couple will be kissing in a coffee shop while having their whole faces covered with lipstick.

Project #4: “True-to-Light Mirror by Us”

The main goal of this project is to present real/intimate moments that women experience in comparison to what it has been presented in the media for decades. The source, in this case, will be a TV commercial from the 70’s that promoted a make-up mirror with lights that could be adjusted depending on the moment of the day. The mirror was called “True-to-Light” and was produced by the company ‘Clairol’. It had a knob with three different options: evening, office and day. The limited options are understood as a metaphor in regards to the also limited ideas on how women are supposed to be and present themselves to society. In that sense, the art presented will contradict that notion and, instead, show a variety of experiences that constitute womanhood nowadays.

The project will consist in an installation where a version of the famous mirror will be placed in the center of the exhibition space. This installation will be interactive and the public will be able to turn the knob which won’t have any words printed on it. The knob will activate the lights of the room and will show different intensities and effects (color, flickering, etc.). On the other hand, sound will also be activated. The public will be able to hear daily conversations between women and individual recordings of private thoughts. Some of the themes that I would like to address will be after sex, period week, shaving day, hangover work morning, awkward family dinner, among others. The goal is to accomplish a loose or less structured version of woman (“We are not supposed to be, instead we are”).

Project #5: RED

This project will celebrate the color red as a symbol of womanhood. Either coming out of our bodies or applying it in a synthetic form, the color red represents two contrasting ideas that have been assigned to women throughout time: revulsion and beauty. It is impossible to avoid the amount of censorship that still happens in our society when it comes to women’s periods. Our blood is still stigmatized and considered improper to the public because it transgresses ‘community guidelines’. I am openly referring to the ongoing censorship that is applied in social media platforms for example. On the other hand, the color red has also been related to beauty. Imagine the iconic ‘red lips’ and ‘red nails’ for example. My purpose, in this sense, is to fetishize an aesthetic element of the woman experience.

The mediums selected for this project will be installation, film and video. The installation will consist of a bedroom fully painted with red paint (walls, bed, night stand, slippers, mirror, etc.). The video component will consist on different settings (public and private) and people being doused with red paint. The purpose of this visual material will be to create a sense of surprise, revulsion and beauty. Some examples of the elements that will be covered with paint are: someone waiting for a bus, a coffee mug on a table, a computer screen, a bed, etc. Finally, I intend to manipulate some footage, part of the commercials collection I acquired, with red paint. The goal will be to create new texture in the film while making it monochromatic.