Through the transcription, manipulation, and reassembling of footage recorded by my father that extensively depicts the domestic sceneries of my early childhood in 1990s Spain, this photo essay explores the domestic environment as a political arena.
In these environments, which I perceive as paradigmatic architectures, I perform a series of gendered rituals of caring which mirror the ways in which my own mother takes care of me and impersonate stereotypically female characters such as a bride, a nurse, or a princess, simultaneously channelling the ways in which I have been disciplined and attempting to rebel against them by asserting my own agency and refusing patriarchal authority.
Through adding my own narration, my father’s gaze is contested and re-appropriated in order to depict a constant struggle in which language, gender, and power are at play in the definition of my own subjectivity. In this contested territory, domesticity plays a central role in the shaping and reclaiming of myself, through the queer hyper-femininity of altered rituals of reproductive labour and performance of typically female roles.
Photos: Stills from photo essay