"FEMININE NOTION"

AMANDA PRÉVAL - ANNIE TONG ZHOU LAFRANCE - BEA PARSONS - BRENT CLEVELAND - DOMINIQUE SIROIS - ELISABETH PERRAULT - ELISE LAFONTAINE - KUH DEL ROSARIO - MALLORY LOWE - MARIE-DANIELLE DUVAL - NAGHMEH SHARIFI - RIHAB ESSAYH - SABA HERAVI - SARAH OSBORNE - SWAPNAA TAMHANE

CURATED BY RAD HOURANI

MARCH 2ND TO APRIL 2ND 2021

The FEMININE NOTION exhibition suggests a critical observation on the learned characteristics that have traditionally been considered more typical of a female. Not limited to social roles, meanings and perspectives, this set of behaviours describes socio-cultural categories in everyday language, through the manifestation of romantic motifs, sensitive passions, and normative behaviours expected of women. Promoted by the media and advertising industry in the public spaces we occupy, such normative gender ideologies are not defined by one’s biological ‘sex’. 
 
This concept of ‘femininity’, which continues to be embedded throughout our educational system and home life from the onset of early childhood, is investigated throughout the exhibit. Subjected to a different set of values, female codes are conditional on one’s cultural identity, region and religion. As a consequence, our means for a collective understanding of what the term ‘girly’ implies, is inhibited by our customs, for their individual foundations continue to influence and build our beliefs.
 
Without any basis, we may even find ourselves to agree on the pairing of pink for girls, implying that each sex has evolved its own colour preference. Amplified by recent efforts in mass marketing, grasping this idea of external coercion, may help us better decipher one’s fixation with feminine associations of fragility, sensitivity and the superficial materials, like that of jewellery.
 
As can be absorbed through the entirety of this exhibit, present is a chronicle of the feminine lexical set. Long hair, lashes and nails, handbags, heels, flowers and dresses, have come to be symbolic with that of women-like impressions, but does that mean it to be categorically true? In demonstrating a more progressive take on gender expression, this exhibit dissects what has always been taught as right and wrong, feminine and masculine, girl and boy.