Diana Guerra

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. The project will address a set of products such as detergents, wipes, kitchen utensils, machines for the household, etc. The woman will trick us to think that she knows her role on how to use the products, but instead she will destroy the house. Thus, the woman becomes dangerous and unreliable. She sounds like the famous ‘Madwoman in the Attic’ but she is not mad, but completely conscious about her actions. In this sense, the work supports a critic towards the traditional tendency in literature (and society in general) to categorize women as either pure or mad. These recreated commercials will highlight women’s agency and power against oppressive gender roles.

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. The first product will be a detergent called “Punch”, which eventually will destroy the house instead of making it a safe space. 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.

The tone of the commercials will have to be carefully directed. Since the women will damage the household, they can’t appear as dumb or mentally ill. In contrast, they must slightly show that they are aware of their actions but are willing to make these disasters happen as a way of protest. On the other hand, the commercials will definitely have a particular sense of humor, where destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin.

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. 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 (see institutional row from map A and B). “Happily Never After” will show that opposite but real side of the story where a woman exists without a partner.

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. This process intends to show us with more clarity how women were portrait while highlighting a sense of absence and longing. What are the reactions after discovering these feelings? Do we follow this longing or do we react against it? These are some questions I would like people to have while experiencing the work.

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 regular dating apps require. This special app, however, won’t have any real profiles but only ghost ones. People won’t be able to see anybody. In this sense, the artwork aims to produce a sense of frustration in contrast to our current dating technology. Nowadays there are several apps that are supposed to cover our emotional needs when it comes to find the perfect partner. You can download Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and so on; while hoping for the best results. This app will serve as a counterpoint and highlight, instead, the absence of options in a world ‘full of them’.

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 the partner. They will now become accomplices in our new versions of beauty.

For this project, the chosen medium will be photography. I chose this medium because it allows the viewer to observe the product on the body permanently. If it is hard to imagine someone applying toothpaste to their whole body, it is even more shocking to contemplate that scene in a still image. On the other hand, the photographs will resemble images from billboards and posters on the streets, which are representations of the media discourse. The body language in the photographs will be similar to the ones we are used to in TV commercials and printed media. The woman as the goddess and the couple as the perfect union of love have now been appropriated in order to create a new ideal of beauty.

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. Th series will be presented in a 30x45 inches format. These dimensions will create a similarity with posters and images from advertisings that are usually seen on the streets.

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: day, evening and office. 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 created 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. I decided to not include any information to not limit the viewers experience while they hear and see the other elements of the installation. The only information the knob will have will be some lines that will resemble sections, so they notice there are a variety of options to be selected. I will also provide a description of the product that was promoted in the 70’s and explain that it has been modified to serve women in our current times.

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 where we are not supposed to be, but instead we are.

Project #5: RED

This project will celebrate the color red as a controversial 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 pleasure. It is impossible to avoid the amount of censorship that is still applied 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 and to the old censorship in the traditional media.

On the other hand, the color red has also been related to express women’s sexuality. Imagine the iconic ‘red lips’ and ‘red lingerie’ for example. While sexuality has been considered as a private matter and sometimes tabu in Western societies, being sexual has also represented power for women. In this sense, I am proposing to celebrate our desires and pleasures while accepting one of the most organic part of our bodies: our own blood. This project will, thus, fetishize an aesthetic element of the woman experience through a positive lens.

The mediums selected for this project will be installation and video. The installation will consist of a bedroom fully painted with red paint (walls, bed, night stand, slippers, mirror, a condom.), which will be called “I had sex on my period”. Even though the installation won’t seek to have a specific narrative, it will address the theme proposed while abstracting a common ‘tabu’ experience for women. 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. I want to specifically address the unexpected moments when women get their periods, which can be anywhere at anytime. 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. What if everybody and everything could experience getting their periods?