Leave My Body Whole
Leave my Body Whole is an ongoing photographic series by student Lee Judi which explores concepts of the male and female gaze. It has been exhibited at Fishcube gallery, Black Flock Art Collective, and in an independent photobook.
Find the photos here (pg. 18-23)
I’ve always struggled with the way we talk about the male and female gaze. Women are either glistening sex dolls — tiny celery waists, plastic lips, begging for attention — or they’re neutered creatures, condemned to suffer under the weight of their own intelligence.
These concepts boil away nuance, reducing their identity into an archetype. That is, until I discovered writer and director Joey Soloway’s theory of the female gaze. In their TIFF Talk, Soloway speaks to how they divide us so we can be used as madonnas and whores.
Soloway confesses, “My female gaze was terrified to speak today. She wakes up in the middle of the night and says, ‘you’re too much’. And at the same instant she's also saying, ‘it’s not enough’.”
Through the male gaze we look at the subject and through the female we feel through the art. Our empathy is wrenched from us, and we’re forced to reckon how we treat one another. My soul rots inside of me as I obsess over who I am in the eyes of ‘him’.
Soloway protests, “The voice of the patriarchy borrows her voice so she can yell at me saying, ‘stop making things!’”
I am in a place of paralysis as an object of the male gaze for a mere 19 years. I don’t know how I’ll do it any longer. So, I won’t reproduce it. I will create consciously, feeling what it is to be the object of that gaze — insufferable. I will not just see photographs, I will feel them. And I will return the gaze: “I see you seeing me”.
I have hope through creation — whether it's mine or someone else's.
Soloway expands, “The female gaze seeks to destroy all gazes. She is the other gaze, queer gaze, trans gaze, intersectional gaze. She is the non-gaze emanating out from the centre of not a triangle but a circle, undivided. The feel with me gaze, being seen gaze, I see you gaze, truth gaze.”
I will leave your body whole, so please leave mine.