Babe: Petra Collins
Petra Collins challenges the norms that have been set in today’s celebrity driven culture, she explores the raw realities that take place during adulthood. Her work celebrates everything that young women go through, from our periods to pubic hair, her photography work covers it all. Babe is a visual encyclopaedia of twenty-nine contemporary female artists, these are artists that still find it incredibly hard to be represented in galleries. However Collins has overcome this, back in 2010 she set up online gallery The Ardorous. According to Collins she set up this online gallery space because as a young female artist she never saw a place for her work. This is an online gallery space that provides a platform for female creatives to easily display their work. Collins describes the artists in Babe as “…endlessly inspiring women who I believe have the power to change the world.”
Many of the visual artists featured in Babe solely exist on Instagram, they use the app as their online galley, they are the curator and the artist, therefore are in change of their own work. Both The Ardorous and Instagram allow for a global audience to view their work, artworks can be viewed at any time and shared via other online networks like Facebook and Twitter. Instagram is easily accessible and anyone can exhibit on it, hence its rise in popularity for contemporary photographers. However, unfortunately censorship takes place. Collins had her Instagram account blocked in 2013 because of an image that she posted. But it wasn’t because she posted a picture of her doing something illegal or something deeply offensive or racist. The photograph is question was of the artist in a bikini with her natural unshaven bikini line poking out.
All of the artists featured in Babe are a refreshing breath of air, many are breaking away from the social norms that have been set within today’s society. The book crushes the boundaries of sexualisation of the female body along with the glamorisation of adolescence.
Babe encapsulates everything about being a contemporary female artist, the book is a guide to girl power. Despite rights for women coming along way over the past few hundred years it is still incredibly difficult for emerging female artists to be exhibited in art galleries. Female artists are still incredibly underrepresented within major international arts institutions, for example at Tate Modern have only had solo female shows 25% of the time since 2007. This is why easily accessible online platforms and physical publications are starting to lead the way for female artists.
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Written by Holly Christopher
Holly is studying Art History at Liverpool John Moores University.