Saturday, March 10th
The project goes live via facebook @ 3pm , Eastern Time.
This project, developed by the artist Ebony G. Patterson, seeks to investigate the performative association of gender through explorations of the masculine as it relates to popular Jamaican dancehall culture. The project relates to an ongoing body of work that has utilized the performative, as mode for explorations of masculine ideologies that function within dancehall construct. These experiences however, were fabricated by the artist. Employing dancehall fashion, language and ‘actors’ who were instructed by the artist in various scenarios.
Given the youth driven nature of dancehall the artist is working with 14 young men and exploring their own ideas about masculinity through fashion . Participants will be asked to design outfits based on these ideas/ideals. The artist will then have the outfits made and embellished, for the participants to wear and have their pictures taken in a embellished ‘photo studio’. Posing and /or posturing as their idealize male. The ‘studio’ will be based in a Downtown, Kingston in Jamaica .The photo studio space will be made based on a Georgian dollhouse structure, used in reference to the both the domestic and toys. Both object and space are important ‘tools’ in of understanding wider gender associations from an early age. All participants will keep their hand embellished tailored outfits along with a photograph of themselves in said outfit.
Participants will be documented in both clothing and space, photographically and also in video. The recording of the project will be virally projected to the following locations – Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Bermuda , Bahamas , United States and the web via Facebook.
This project is funded by the 2011 Rex Nettleford Fellowship for Cultural Studies, and supported by the Multi-Care Foundation of Jamaica, a not –for- profit organization working with youth from the inner city in the Arts and Sports.
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