Description
ARTIST STATEMENT
PUSH UP! RE-IGNITING RADICAL ACTS OF RESISTANCE. In 1968, women objected to the Miss America pageant because they saw it as objectifying them. They threw personal items like bras, underwear, makeup, false eyelashes, girdles, and high heels into a ‘Freedom Trash Can’. This symbolic protest, according to BBC, prompted the media to invent the label “‘Bra-Burning’ as a catchy label to mock and trivialize the feminist movement. The exaggerated narrative stuck and became a prominent cultural shorthand for radical feminism.”
In this piece, I’m creating my own act of bra-burning as a consequence of my refusal to accept the current political mutilation of women’s rights and choices—a controlling agenda that has set its sights against women by taking us back decades. PUSH-UP! asserts my defiance.
Its underwire reinforces feminist resistance, fighting off a necessary discomfort. Push up, push back, against this scorching reality we are living in.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cynthia Kerby is a mixed-media visual artist in Evanston, IL. Originally from Michigan with Métis Ojibwe/French/Canadian ancestry, her work has been shown at numerous galleries, art centers, and appears in various literary collections, including RHINO Poetry and Hypertext Magazine. She shows familiar objects in unfamiliar ways, by making close observations of life’s frailties through a lens of personal awareness and curiosity.
© Cynthia Kerby