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print this pageWomen, Space and Desire
Lightning Round: Rani Robison
Sunday, September 15 - 9:00AM to 9:15AM
ELIF 301
My focus is on concepts of the woman as a traveler, a wanderer, a navigator. Historically, the city in many ways has been reserved for the male tourist. A woman walking the streets — particularly at night — may find herself in danger, and could easily be defined as a "street walker." Laura Mulvey and other feminist film theorists have explored women's relationships to physical space, citing examples of contained, domestic spaces as being closely associated with women, while open spaces — such as the frontier — being reserved for male exploration. Much has been written about Baudelaire's 19th Century idea of the "flâneur," the casual observer of the city. There are emerging writings about the concept of a "flâneuse," the female wanderer.
Much of my photography and video work has focused on relationships between physical and psychological space, particularly as it relates to female identity. For example, I have employed cinematic framing devices such as windows, doors, and hallways to metaphorically describe feelings of desire, containment, hysteria, and control. I have also depicted this female character outside of these spaces in order to explore. Laura Mulvey also discusses the theory of the "male gaze" in cinema, the idea that a female's role is often to be passively viewed and desired. In much of my work, I have tried to turn this concept around by presenting the female as an active viewer, the one who sees, the one who desires.
My work is deeply inspired by cinema, and 1960's French cinema in particular. After the recent death of filmmaker and photographer Agnès Varda, I began to reflect again on her earlier films, such as "Cleo from 5 to 7" (1961) and "Vagabond" (1985). Both films portray women freely traversing space, although in very different contexts. I also reflected one of her final films, "Faces Places" (2017), where she and photographer JR traveled through small towns in France, using chance meetings with locals to inspire their work. In fact, this month I plan to travel to the South of France. I am excited to roam through new spaces, employing my camera to record my observations as I walk.
I will show a brief series of film stills and movie clips to reinforce the above concepts, as well as examples of my own photographic work as it relates to Women, Space, and Desire.
speaker
Rani Robison
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