JENNIFER FOX ARMOUR
The Call is Coming From Inside the House
West Hollywood, California • jenniferfoxarmour.com
-
The Call is Coming From Inside the House (2022-) is a conceptual exploration of the role that complacency, distractedness, and influencer culture might play in the erosion of women’s rights in the United States.
My feminist identity was born at the age of 11 when I read about–and saw photos of–the 1978 March on Washington for the Equal Rights Amendment. Seventies pop culture icons (Maude, Mary Tyler Moore, Billy Jean King) made me believe “I am woman, hear me roar,” but the fight and subsequent failure to ratify the ERA taught me that in the eyes of the law, the battle was ongoing.
With this series, I combine images that I made of women on the streets of Los Angeles and New York with photos of text appropriated from the messaging that surrounds us: billboards, directional signage, graffiti, etc. Inspired by the art of Barbara Kruger, I employ declarative statements and incorporate clichéd or seemingly dumbed-down directives as a means to sound an alarm. The resulting photographic composites were created by layering individual black and white and color images. One layer symbolizes a clear and concise choice and the other is representative of the complexities that exist in the real world. Through sarcasm and thinly-veiled anger, I question whether the *post-feminism theory of the 1990s, combined with the advent of social media and the rise of online influencers, enforced the idea that equality among the sexes had been achieved.
One of the first signs of a democracy in decline is the curbing of women’s rights. The United States is backsliding and there is no time to be tired or unfocused; though, issue fatigue is real. With this work, I invite viewers to critically analyze their own positions regarding individualism vs. collective activism and to consider whether media representation of empowerment has resulted in real-world impacts on issues of inequality.
*A discourse popularized by the mass media in the 1990s reflecting a reaction against the feminist theories of the 1970s and 1980s, often on the basis that the ‘battle of the sexes’ is over. - Oxford Reference
-
The base photo is black and white or color and has been layered with an image of text that is the opposite - black and white over color and color over black and white. I would love to see this work presented in a multi- media format utilizing video projection and wheatpaste poster replication. For effect, the images could be shown on a loop in quick succession, at varying sizes, and then slowed down. Printed images should be sized and hung to replicate illegal posters that typically hung outdoors on sides of buildings or on construction fencing in cities. This work, because of the urgency and content, is meant to be in-your-face and the consumption of it should reflect that.