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Dawn Woolley
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Delighted to have work in this brilliant new book by Dr Micheal Petry.
From the art of Cindy Sherman to Anish Kapoor, from Yayo Kusama to Tracey Emin, MirrorMirror presents an intriguing and gloriously illustrated global survey of ‘reflective’ work by MORE THAN 150 artists across media, nationalities, genders, and locations. The extraordinary range of works featured in MirrorMirror invite us to ponder and reflect upon the nature of reality and our place within the world.
Special consideration is given to selfies and the way in which the mobile phone now operates as a modern-day mirror to the self. In all these works, the concept of reflection, the notion of creating an alternative space or of opening up space within the frame of the viewer’s interaction with the artwork, have a root in the past.
Available to pre-order now Thames and Hudson
#Rebel Selves Installation
Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces:
Warrington (Sankey Street)
Rebel Moves on the Sales Floor Dance performance
Thurs 7th Nov 6-8pm
Book free tickets here
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The #Rebel Selves installation is something between a stage set for an absurdist play, a hall of mirrors, and an exploded 3-dimensional photograph. Masks, garments, and props scatter the space, inviting visitors to play different characters and create queer selfies.
Selfies are an important form of self-expression because they enable marginalised people not represented on mainstream media to be visible, build communities, and support each other. However, they are expected to conform to binary gender and other beauty ideals. Research shows that people who don’t conform experience more hostility online. #Rebel Selves explores creative methods that could be used when taking selfies in order to avoid some of these problems.
On Thurs 7th Nov there will be a specially devised contemporary dance intervention, Rebel Moves on the Sales Floor, choreographed by Miriam Levy in collaboration with Dawn Woolley, performed by Miriam Levy, Jay Yule, Andrea Callaghan, Lizzy Tan and Maya Williams. Taking place in the #Rebel Selves installation, the dance plays with notions of gender, gesture and masquerade on social media and in selfie cultures. During the performance selfies were live streamed online via the @RebelSelves Instagram page.
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Tickets are free but book is required:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rebel-moves-on-the-sales-floor-tickets-1044826041817
For more information contact Dawn Woolley at dawn.woolley@network.rca.ac.uk
or follow https://www.instagram.com/rebelselves/
This project is kindly supported by the Arts Council England, Lees Arts University and Castlefield Gallery.​
Release Your Inner Rebel
SELFIE COMPETITION
Release Your Inner Rebel and win exciting prizes!
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The #Rebel Selves Smartphone App is designed to make selfies glitchy and fun. It was created by Charlotte Roe, an artist based in Huddersfield, and Dr Dawn Woolley, an artist and research fellow at Leeds Arts University, with support from a Leeds Arts University and the HE Innovation Fund.
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Dawn researches social networking sites and selfies. Because it is difficult to achieve beauty ideals, selfie taking can cause low self-esteem and body image issues. The app is one of the creative approaches she is developing to challenge gender and beauty ideals and reduce these risks.
To launch the app and share her important research, she is running Release Your Inner Rebel Selfie Competition to find the most creative images that can be produced using the app.
The Release Your Inner Rebel Selfie Competition is free and very easy to enter. Participants create selfies using the app http://www.rebelselves.com and either add them to the gallery page labelled with their Instagram account, send them to rebelselves@gmail.com or tag @rebelselves on Instagram and use #rebelselfie tag in the post.
Winning entries will be shared online and exhibited in a poster exhibition around Leeds (Sponsorship kindly provided by Pop Art).
Dawn is running some free online workshops to introduce the competition and the app. Sign up here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/release-your-inner-rebel-selfie-competition-workshops-tickets-946353116647 if you’d like to learn more.
The deadline to enter is Sunday 20th October 2024
Winners will be announced on Saturday 23rd November
Our amazing panel of expert judges are:
Maya Fuhr, fashion photographer and philanthropist in LA
Dr Michael Petry, artist, author and Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) London
Jung Me Chai, gallerist and founder of Diskurs Berlin
Mindy Lee, artist and curator of Blyth Gallery London
Matthew Pendergast, Curator and Deputy Director, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
Prizes:
First Prize: £100 Amazon voucher from Leeds Arts University
Second Prize: £50 Voucher for Take It Easy Photo Lab
Third Prize: £40 Curator Space Artist subscription
More to be announced.
Thank you to these organisations for their providing these amazing prizes.
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BOOK LIST
I was delighted to be asked to compile a book recommendation list in relation to my book Consuming the Body. You can read it here:
https://shepherd.com/best-books/consumer-culture-and-tearing-it-down
NOW AVAILABLE
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/consuming-the-body-9781350225299/
Consuming the Body examines contemporary consumerism and the commodified construction of ideal gendered bodies, paying particular attention to the new forms of interaction produced by social networking sites. Describing the behaviours of an ideal neoliberal subject, Woolley identifies modes of discipline, forms of pleasure, and opportunities for subversion in an examination of how individuals are addressed and the ways in which they are expected to respond.
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A brilliant analysis of consumerism exposing how we are manipulated by capitalism seeking to turn our subjectivity into an object for corporate profit. By drilling into the shiny surface of corporate deceit Consuming the Body uncovers ways to resist the deceptions foisted on us.
Peter Kennard, Professor of Political Art, Royal College of Art, UK
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What are we to do with the idealised mirror-images that capitalism beams at us through social media, making us all fetishists and hysterics? Consuming the Body is written urgently but elegantly, finally offering ways of thinking outside this dangerous box.
Professor Naomi Segal, Honorary Fellow, Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London, UK
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This book is a fascinating take on selfie culture and beyond, taking up classic feminist psychoanalytic discussions of the fetishistic gaze to think about the impact of social networks, cosmetic surgery, health surveillance and the 'sadistic commands' of capitalist consumer culture. Focusing on the increasingly blurred lines between neoliberal self-surveillance and neurosis, the book explores how hysteria, anorexia and bulimia share much with contemporary online imperatives around fitness, health and beauty. Offering some solace through activist work on social networks, the book proposes that selfie culture needs a new set of rules for it to become a space of empowerment and to loosen the disciplinary control that it exerts.
Catherine Grant, Senior Lecturer, Art and Visual Cultures department, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
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Selfies and social media have an image problem - in more ways than one. In this compelling book, Dawn Woolley challenges the narrow stereotypes criticising how bodies are portrayed in these digital media. She elucidates their complex meanings, practices and politics, and in doing so, recuperates their value, particularly for women with non-normative bodies.
Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, Australia
Dawn Woolley offers up an exciting and eloquent exploration of the often sadistic ways that contemporary capitalism compels us to consume. Importantly Woolley gives us valuable insight into radical self-presentation approaches on social media that glitch and refuse the 'ideal' in order to empower a body's presence.
Dr. Jacki Willson, Associate Professor in Performance and Gender, School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK
PUBLISHED
'If we think of our attention as an act of care, my hope is that tech allows for increased attention to the things that matter, so long as we can stave off feelings of jadedness or burnout and remain mindful of how we consume information and connect.'
'Woolley sheds light on how social media mediates the hyper(in)visibility of marginalized bodies'.
Introduction by Maya Ellen Hertz (Editor-in-Chief) for Cursor Magazine's Special Issue Attention!
My contribution, Attention Rebels, can be read here:
https://cursormag.net/attentionrebels_05
#Rebel Selves installation is something between a stage set for an absurdist play, a camp hall of mirrors, and an exploded 3-dimensional photograph. Fabric wall-hangings, masks, costumes, and props create a performative installation space inviting visitors to play different characters and take queer selfies that rebel against gender, beauty, and other norms. Costumes and props enable visitors to determine how visible they are, either merging into the backdrops thorough camouflaging costumes or standing out with dazzling masks. Binary gender ideals are confounded by the theatre flats and furniture which present an array of poses and gestures.
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Selfies are an important form of self-expression because they enable marginalised people not represented on mainstream media to be visible, create online communities, and participate in self-esteem building interactions. However, selfies are expected to conform to binary gender and other beauty ideals. Research shows that bodies that are marginalised in terms of race, gender, sexuality, size and disability experience hostility online. This may prevent them from receiving the benefits of using social media platforms. #Rebel Selves explores creative methods that could be used when taking selfies in order to avoid some of these problems.
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