Photographs are great, am I right? You can literally capture everything, from the most candid and meaningless shot to the most iconic and historically important moment. But, what you can capture as well, is potantial for discompfort. Yes, that is possible. And Hana Pesut has done that, in a beautiful way!
Her tumbler is a fascinating and very urban seeming wild mxiture of all sorts of (mostly) portrait photographs with tons of different photo concepts and great ideas. But the series that got her in the spotlight, and actually has caught y attention and admiration, is called "Switcheroo". What may sound quite mysterious and maybe complex is actually a simple, but very strong, idea and a clean concept. In this series Pesut has asked couples of strangers, as far as I have seen the pictures all couples are male and female, to be photographed. She has taken a photograph of them and then has taken another one of them. BUT: this time the two photographed individuals have switched clothes. And out comes an interesting picture, with an even bigger question in the back. Do we feel compfortable with these pictures, or do they evoke some sort of discompfort?
As one can imagine, there is a war going on right now. And this war is not faught with weapons or violence, well mostly not, but is between "morals", gender construction and the possibilities and the will of people to accept change. What I mean is: Are we ready to accept different notions of gender in our society as "normal" and part o the spectrum, or do we still keep close to what classically is a manly and what is feminine. Are we able to accept and agree over thefact that gender is fluid, its nature is constructed and its existance is a performance? If looking at the following pictures might evoke the sense in you, that you might feel a discompfort in seeing people wearing clothes not directly assignable to their gender, and walking the streets like that, there is the possibility that you might not agree with me to some point.
By the way: The pictures I use of course are property of Pesut. But these three following are my favorites, of what I have seen so far.
If you ask me, I would loo twice on the streets. But thing is I would actualy walk along with a big smile and be happy that people dare to challenge stereotypical notion of gender through fashion. And, lets be honest for a second, most of the people in the clothes of the other don't look bad. I mean men in dresses is probably the thing that causes the biggest stirr, but they don't look bad in them, they just look unusual. Anyways, I find the photographs to be a great, and much needed, idea. Gender is a construct, a performance and actuallly pretty useless since gender is not sex. So go ask: "Is this causing any discompfort to someone, and if so, why?
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