Sasha
Yungju Lee
In
my work, I examine the role of popular media images in the formation
of gendered identities and in defining the visibility of race.
In this series of altered photographs, originally designed for
display as advertisements on city buses, I address the cultural
imposition of identity through the mass production and consumption
of cinematic representation. The altered images question the
function of the female Hollywood movie star as a visual standard
to be emulated by every American woman.
Cosmetic
surgery that eliminates the Asian fold above the eyelid has become
a means by which many Asian women attempt to follow the "starlet"
standard. In these images I use my own eyes and digitally superimpose
them on the faces of American movie icons. The result is an enactment
of the reappropiation of identity: What if Monroe had eyes like mine?
How would that make me think about myself? How would others think
about me? A fragment of the body, the eyes, literally reshapes the
whole identity of the portraits and reconfigures notions of what it
means to be an "All-American Girl."